September turned out to be a cruel month for Indonesia’s startup ecosystem. The prolonged funding winter, coupled with intense competition, sounded the death knell for three startups in the archipelago — Lummo, Kitabeli, and Finantier.
Vietnam continued to shine bright with a couple of successful funding rounds as well as exit opportunities for investors.
Chinese startups, meanwhile, were found struggling on all fronts amid geopolitical tensions and regulatory tightening.
Missed these stories earlier? Not to worry. We have curated a list of our top trending stories and analyses from September 2023.
Stories from Southeast Asia
Indonesia’s Lummo enters voluntary liquidation, appoints Kroll as liquidatorAnother startup bites the dust as monetisation and scale-up challenges continue to haunt Indonesia’s warung tech startups.
Indonesian e-grocery startup Segari closes $23.5m Series B roundThis fundraising story points to the growing list of Indonesian startups raising internal rounds.
Vietnam’s English learning app ELSA raises $23m in fresh funding from UOB, existing investorsVietnam’s edtech sector continues to be an outlier among global peers as investors see promise in startups seeking to transform the space.
New funding, M&A in Vietnam’s healthcare sector set exit stage for existing backersInvestors set for a neat exit as big buyers queue up for Vietnam’s healthcare assets.
Indonesian fintech startup Finantier said to have shut downFinantier’s closure lays bare the unique challenges faced by open finance platforms in SE Asia.
Braving pandemic onslaught, Indonesia’s F&B players push pedal on expansionA look at what’s brewing in indonesia’s F&B industry.
Indonesian social commerce startup Kitabeli terminates operationsA social commerce startup that bowed out even before the regulators blew the final whistle.
Stories from Greater China
The LP View: HK fund managers, startups in catch-22 situation amid intensifying China-US tensionsJoseph Lang, Chief Executive Officer of DL Securities, opens up about the repercussions of US-China geopolitical tensions on startups and fund managers in Kong Kong.
CDH Investments bets on clear entry criteria, exit timelines to generate consistent returnsHow does Chinese alternative asset manager CDH Investments manage to yield consistent returns amid testing times?
J&T Express gears for Hong Kong IPO but faces concerns in IndonesiaYet another foreign company struggles to navigate Indonesia’s regulatory space.
‘Investors haven’t completely pulled out of China, they may have adjusted commitments’Catch Audrey The-Dumas, Managing Director at global investment firm Cambridge Associates, speak about the change in approach towards China and if and how it has benefitted India.
Applications pile up as new rules delay offshore listings by Chinese firmsOver a hundred Chinese companies are awaiting approval for offshore listings as new rules create a huge backlog.
Stories from India
Indian fund managers go slow on deals, toughen due diligence amid testing timesOnce bitten, twice shy, investors are taking up to six months before arriving at a pricing for the funding round.
No sign of winter in Indian PE-VC fundraising this yearOn a positive note, there seems to be no dearth of funding for Indian PE-VC firms as investors continue to be bullish on the India story.
BYJU’s may sell Epic, Great Learning to repay entire $1.2b loan in six monthsThe latest in the never-ending turmoils at BYJU’s
