Investors of the Week

It has been less than two weeks since 2024 started, but the startup ecosystem is oblivious to the calendar's events and has already started on a high note. We saw numerous investors beginning the New Year with new fund opportunities for startups.

Singapore and Vietnam Startups witnessed a fruitful week with investments from major SEA investors. Here are a few investors who made their first investments of the year.

VP Bank Securities

Be Group, the Vietnamese tech company behind multiservice consumer platform Be has raised 739.5 billion dong (US$30.3 million) from VPBank Securities (VPBankS), a subsidiary of Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank). The deal, which was completed this month, gives VPBankS a minority stake in Be Holdings, the parent company of Be Group. VPBankS also becomes Be Group’s first institutional investor via this move.

A competitor of super app Grab, the Be platform provides more than 15 services, including those in the transportation, delivery, and fintech spaces. The company has partnered with over 300,000 drivers and facilitated over 120 million rides in 2023. The investment also allows Be, which aims to be EBITDA positive in the 2024 financial year – to use VPBankS’ expertise in corporate management and access to the capital market.

Another notable investor in Be Group is Green and Smart Mobility (GSM), the taxi services firm from Vingroup founder Pham Nhat Vuong that focuses on electric vehicles. As part of the March 2023 deal, customers can book either GSM’s EV taxi service or beCar and beTaxi on the Be platform.

BRV Capital

Silicon Box, a Singapore-based semiconductor design and manufacturing firm, has secured US$200 million in a series B funding round from various investors, including BRV Capital, Event Horizon Capital, Lam Capital, and TDK Ventures.

Its co-founders, Sehat Sutardja, Weili Dai, and Byung-joon Han, also participated in this funding round. With this investment, the company claims that its valuation has now surpassed US$1 billion, hitting unicorn status.

Founded in 2021, Silicon Box specializes in chiplet architecture, helping chip designers transition from single-chip processing.

In a statement, the company pointed out how costly packaging methods have hindered semiconductor chips’ performance and given an upper hand to the industry’s most well-funded players. According to Silicon Box, chiplets enable “dramatically better performance, smaller device sizes, and improved device reliability.”

With the fresh funds, the company aims to expand its chiplet tech globally and support the development of large language models (LLMs), generative AI, mobile computing, data centers, and automotive tech.

Additionally, the company said its US$2 billion factory in Singapore has been mass-producing chiplets for early customers since October 2023. Silicon Box has ramped up hiring to support 24/7 operations at the 750,000-square-foot facility, which was opened in July 2023.

The surge in demand for AI has driven the semiconductor industry over the past year. The global semiconductor market is projected to grow 13.1% this year to a record US$588 billion.

Asia Partners

Asia Partners, a Singapore-based growth equity investment firm, has closed its second fund, Asia Partners II LP, raising a total of US$474 million in committed capital.

This amount is 23% larger than its inaugural fund, which had commitments totaling US$384 million. With the closure of this latest fund, the company’s assets under management have now reached US$1 billion.

Limited partners in the new investment vehicle include institutional investors, family offices, and individual investors across six continents. Asia Partners also noted that over 9% of the fund’s capital comes from its employees and advisory board members. In a statement, the company said that Asia Partners II LP aims to invest in the long-term growth potential of Southeast Asia startups, with a focus on series C or series D rounds and check sizes ranging from US$20 million to US$100 million.

We continue to believe this decade will be a golden age of entrepreneurship and innovation for Southeast Asia, and we are focused on accelerating that progress,” said Oliver Minho Rippel, co-founder and partner of Asia Partners, in the statement. Asia Partners was founded in 2019 by Rippel, Nick Nash, Jill Cheong, Pitra Harun, Kien Nguyen, and Brook Supanusonti. It has invested in seven companies across various sectors, including ShopBack, Doctor Anywhere, SCI Ecommerce, GudangAda, Carsome, Snapask, and RedDoorz.