Most companies today recognize the importance of global warming. As such, they are redefining their goals in an effort to address the climate change issue. Envisioning Partners, a Seoul-based venture capital firm, has secured its latest impact fund, the oversubscribed $64 million (76.8 billion KRW) Envisioning Climate Solutions (ECS) Fund, to back startups combating the […]
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Bangkok, Thailand. Photo by Aaron Thomas on Unsplash
April 15, 2021
Southeast Asia-based startups kicked off 2021 in style, raising a record $6 billion in the first quarter of the year. Deal count, too, jumped amid signs of economic recovery and mass inoculation programmes to curb COVID-19 across the region.
According to our latest report, companies in the region inked at least 211 deals in the first quarter to raise close to 70% of the total capital secured in 2020. Of this, $4 billion was raised by ride-hailing giant Grab and Indonesia-headquartered logistics firm J&T Express both companies raised $2 billion each as they prepare for their public market debut in the US.
Why should investors care about Grabâs SPAC?
The ride-hailing and financial services platformâs listing will be seen as a test of Southeast Asiaâs tech start-ups.
Grab started life as a ride-hailing company in 2012, before expanding its services to include food delivery and financial products like loans and insurance.
In January, its financial arm Grab Financial Group secured $300m in Series A funding, led by South Koreaâs Hanwha Asset Management. This followed a 40% jump in revenues year-on-year in 2020 for Grabâs financial service business, which has distributed over 70 million insurance policies since launching in April 2019.
In February, Grab secured a $2bn five-year loan facility from international investors, which it plans to use to strengthen liquidity and diversify its funding sources.