A Recap on What Happened This Week: Asian Startup News Overview (2nd April- 7th April)

By: Asia Business Outlook Team | Friday, 07 April 2023

The first week of April began with a bang, and it was indeed a good start for Asian startups, as there were numerous fund-raising opportunities. Magenta Mobility, a Mumbai-based electric mobility startup, announced this week that it has raised approximately 180.6 Cr in its Series A1 funding round, while an open-source data infrastructure platform based in Singapore announced US$3 million (RM13.2 million) in seed funding yesterday.

The week was incredible in terms of fund raising, and here are the top five startups that excelled in the seed funding round.

Magenta Mobility

Mumbai-based electric mobility startup Magenta Mobility on Wednesday (April 5) announced that it has raised $22 Mn (about INR 180.6 Cr) in its Series A1 funding round from UK-based energy major bp and Morgan Stanley India infrastructure. Speaking with Inc42, the founder and managing director of Magenta Mobility said that the startup is planning to use the fresh funds to increase its fleet of vehicles, penetrate more cities across the country, and strengthen its overall tech stack.

ChopValue

ChopValue – a company that builds sustainable products from recycled materials – has marked two major milestones: transforming its 100 millionth chopstick into new products and closing of a $7.7 million funding round to expand its decentralized micro factory network.

The milestones align with ChopValue’s rapid growth since its inception in 2016 as demonstrated by the creation of over 150 jobs across 6 countries through 63 in-development franchises and the storing of over 136,000 kg of carbon into new products from material collected by over 1,700 community restaurant partners.

Plus the company also recently signed Strategic Growth Agreements for market entries in Japan, Singapore, Central Europe, and the US. And the new scale achieved through its micro factory network is allowing the company to serve strategic B2B clients for projects such as multi-restaurant build outs while continuing to meet end-customer demand.

Qmed Asia

Malaysian health-tech startup Qmed Asia has successfully raised MYR5.1 million ($1.16 million) through an equity crowdfunding (ECF) campaign on Leet Capital.

Leet Capital said in a statement on Wednesday that Qmed Asia has attracted support from 110 investors, including angel investors, the Malaysia Co-Investment Fund (MyCIF) and 1337 Ventures.

“Our mission has always been to redefine healthcare by equipping healthcare providers with innovative digital solutions that empower them to deliver exceptional, efficient, and personalized care to their patients,” said Dr. Kev Lim, Co-founder of Qmed Asia.

Dozer

Dozer, a Singapore-based open-source data infrastructure platform for scalable real-time data APIs, announced US$3 million (RM13.2 million) in seed funding yesterday. Led by Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia’s Surge, the round also saw participation from Gradient Ventures and January Capital.

The new funding will contribute to the scaling of product and engineering teams.

“Dozer was born from experiences in delivering scalable data products at different organisations such as DBS Bank, Goldman Sachs, DataRobot and PaySense (now PayU),” said Matteo Pelati and Vivek Gudapuri, co-founders of Dozer.

Now openly accessible to developers, Dozer offers a plug-and-play data infrastructure backend that allows engineers to connect with any data source, combine them and create real-time APIs to build end-user applications.

InsuranceDekho

India’s MSME segment, which consists of 63 million enterprises and contributes nearly 30% of the country’s GDP, only sees insurance penetration hovering around 5%.

To address this issue and extend its MSME reach, InsuranceDekho has acquired Verak, a local SME-focused insurance distribution firm. Verak’s team will also be fully integrated into its parent company.

Despite being in operation for only 13 months, Verak said it has gained “thousands” of small shopkeepers and experienced a 30% month-on-month growth every month. Its investors include Sequoia and Lightspeed India Partners.