A Recap on What Happened This Week: Asian Startup News Overview (July 16th -21st July)

We live in a world where innovation and technology are crucial to business growth strategies and provide competitive advantages. Digital technology, medical advancement, distinct experiences, and new financial solutions, among other things, have become much more prevalent in the last decade and even more so now that the world is in the grip of a global health and economic crisis. For the most part, Asian startups have long been regarded as the engines of innovation. They are increasingly important these days, as we see more examples of startups innovating and developing rapid solutions, assisting many countries in their transition to fully digital work, education, and health services. Today, Micro small and medium enterprises are the backbone of ASEAN economies, accounting for more than 96% of total establishment and contribute to between 51.7% and 97.2% of total employment in each ASEAN Members States.

This week, India's open-source low-code platform ToolJet received funding from Microsoft's venture fund and GitHub via the M12 GitHub Fund to fuel its next stage of growth, while Silicon Box, a start-up that provides semiconductor design and device integration services, announced the opening of its new $2 billion (S$2.65 billion) factory in Singapore.

The Five Startups that gained fortune this week are-:

ToolJet

ToolJet, India's open-source low-code platform for developers, announced on July 17 that it has received funding from M12, Microsoft's venture fund, and GitHub through the M12 GitHub Fund to fuel its next stage of growth.

The investment will be critical to ToolJet's strategic initiatives, which include expanding its workforce and advancing the platform's artificial intelligence capabilities, according to a statement from the company.

ToolJet is poised to bolster its talented team with this infusion of resources by attracting top-tier talent across multiple domains.

ToolJet aims to improve the intelligence of its platform by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI), allowing developers to leverage advanced algorithms and automation to further streamline their development workflows.

Farizon

Farizon, a Chinese manufacturer of electric and hybrid trucks owned by Geely, has raised $600 million in a Series-A funding round, according to a company statement.

The Hangzhou-based company, which manufactures and sells hybrid and pure electric commercial vehicles, stated that the funds will be used for further technology and product development, as well as international expansion.

According to the company, the most recent round of funding was led by Boyu Capital and Yuexiu Industrial Fund, with participation from other investors including Singapore-based United Clean Energy and Linjiang Industry Group. It follows Farizon's Pre-A round financing in October 2022, in which it raised more than $300 million.

PingSafe

PingSafe, an India-based cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) powered by attacker intelligence, announced its exit from stealth mode on Thursday with $3.3 million in seed funding.

The funding round was led by Sequoia Capital India & Southeast Asia's (now known as Peak XV Partners) Surge with participation from prominent angel investors, including Rahul Chari (Co-Founder & CTO, PhonePe), Neeraj Arora (ex-CBO, WhatsApp), Saurya Prakash (Co-Founder, Recko), Vivek Ramachandran (Founder, SquareX) and Gaurav Agarwal (Co-Founder & CTO, Tata 1mg) and Tanglin Ventures, PingSafe said in a statement.

The funding will be used to accelerate PingSafe's business development efforts in India and Southeast Asia, as well as to advance the company's unique approach to cloud security and product innovation.

MAKA Motors

MAKA Motors, an electric vehicle (EV) startup based in Indonesia, announced the successful completion of its seed funding round on Thursday, raising $37.6 million. According to MAKA Motors, the funding round was co-led by AC Ventures, South Korean investor SV Investment, and East Ventures.

Northstar Group, Provident, AlfaCorp, Skystar Capital, Peak XV Partners (formerly known as Sequoia India and SEA), Openspace Ventures, Shinhan Venture Investment, BEENEXT, Kinesys Group, and M Venture Partners (MVP) have also participated in the funding round.

The funds raised in this seed round, according to the statement, will allow MAKA Motors to scale its operations, expand its research and development capabilities and facilities, and accelerate the production of its innovative electric motorcycles.

Silicon Box

Silicon Box, a start-up that provides semiconductor design and device integration services, has unveiled its new $2 billion (S$2.65 billion) factory in Singapore. The Tampines facility is designed to produce semiconductor chiplet interconnections for use in areas such as artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and wearables.

The factory, according to Singapore-based Silicon Box, will create up to 1,200 jobs ranging from engineers to digital experts. It will also provide opportunities for upskilling, with assistance from the Economic Development Board (EDB).

Later this week, CEO and co-founder Han Byung Joon stated that the start-up chose Singapore for its factory because of the city-state's reputation as a global innovation hub and its skilled workforce.