“Peace be with all of you,” said Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost—now Pope Leo XIV—in his first public words after his ascension to the papacy this week. Yet, peace seems increasingly out of reach in today’s turbulent geopolitical landscape.
The ominous drumbeats of war reached Asia this week with the Indo-Pak border turning into a potential nuclear flash point.
For India, the timing is particularly sensitive. The country had been gaining investor confidence, thanks to its deft handling of past geopolitical risks and growing appeal as a stable alternative in the ‘China Plus One’ strategy, as we noted in this week’s edition of our weekly newsletter Beyond the Buyout.
India’s stock markets—which have almost always given positive returns within a six-month period of past Indo-Pak conflicts—held steady on May 7, when India launched Operation Sindoor, an airstrike inside Pakistan territory, a fortnight after a terrorist attack on civilians in Kashmir. But by next day, the indices turned red signalling that investor nerves may not hold forever.
Battles can also be fought in the economic sphere, as we’ve known for a while. And they can be just as consequential. President Trump had unleashed ammunition of a different type with his Liberation Day tariffs targeting, most notably, China last month.
As I write this, ice-breaker talks are scheduled to be held in Switzerland between Washington and Beijing on Saturday raising hopes of a truce. The future of the global economy may hinge on its success.
Private market investors’ unease over the Sino-US trade war was evident in the fundraising landscape in April. Startups in Greater sealed 201 deals—respectable by historical standards—but fundraising value fell 13.3% from March.
In times when peace feels fragile—on both the battlefield and the balance sheet—investors and founders alike are being forced to adapt in real time. Whether it’s the fallout of a border strike or the chill of a tariff war, capital rarely waits.
As the dust settles on a volatile week, we take stock of the trends, signals, and stories that mattered beyond the headlines—especially for those tracking the private markets.
Analyses and deep dives
My colleague Eudora Wang reported from Hong Kong this week on market forces weeding out ‘zombie funds’ in China. The number of PE and VC firms in China declined to 11,894 in the March quarter, after a 6.3% year-on-year drop to 12,083 at the end of 2024.
Macro challenges are speeding up the elimination of underperforming players despite growing dry powder in the Chinese private investment market, which reached 14.35 trillion yuan ($1.97 trillion) by the end of March. Amid a slow IPO market, fund managers who have failed to secure exits are left with the so-called zombie funds, which are funds that still hold some or all assets beyond the intended holding periods.
Despite the warming IPO market, investors in China continue to explore innovative and alternative exit options amid a pressing need for liquidity. Venture growth firm XVC, for instance, is in discussions with LPs and cash-positive portfolio companies about the potential of distributing returns to investors in the form of corporate dividends or through voluntary redemptions by startups.
This week we interviewed Chen Yuliang, founding partner of Kuala Lumpur-based Bee Alternatives, which acquired early-stage venture capital firm JAFCO Asia in April. The move marks Bee Alternatives’ transition to a multi-asset alternative investment platform, in a strategic shift beyond its roots in secondaries.
We also had a few stories from Vietnam that were popular with our readers.
A spate of Vietnamese GPs—MoMo-backer Thien Viet Securities, 20in20 Partners and NextBold Capital, to name a few—have hit the road to raise new funds. While these GPs are not first-time investors, raising first-time funds in this climate is tricky. How tough, you ask? Sixty-four percent of managers raising funds in 2024 fell short of their targets.
We also reported on the contrasting state of affairs at two giant Vietnamese startups.
Fintech unicorn MoMo posted its first full-year profit in 2024, quietly delivering what many of Southeast Asia’s tech giants are still chasing—profitability. MoMo became a unicorn in late 2021. For comparison, Sea Ltd took eight years from unicorn status (2015) to post a full-year profit (2023). Grab, which entered the billion-dollar-valuation club in 2014, has yet to post a full-year profit.
Meanwhile, e-commerce platform Tiki, once seen as Vietnam’s answer to regional giants like Shopee and Lazada, has seen its valuation collapse to less than $10 million. At its peak, Tiki was backed by global investors and chasing unicorn status with a post-money valuation approaching $900 million.
We also explored the churn in Southeast Asia’s food delivery market against the backdrop of foodpanda’s exit from Thailand. The recent market exit by foodpanda, which moved away from the Vietnam market in 2023, is yet another sign that Southeast Asia’s food delivery market has entered a stage of maturity after nearly a decade of fierce growth.
Food delivery is no walk in the park. Just ask India’s Swiggy. The listed company reported a quarterly loss that nearly doubled year-on-year for the March quarter, as it spent heavily to beef up its quick commerce delivery business, Instamart, to compete with rivals Blinkit and unicorn Zepto.
At the same time, Flash Coffee is taking a break from rampant expansion to focus on Indonesia. Its team had once executed an aggressive international expansion into seven markets and investors were rewarding top-line growth. That strategy faltered when the post-pandemic funding climate abruptly shifted.
Startup funding, scoops and such
Sea Ltd. has renamed its financial services arm from SeaMoney to Monee. It’s a playful name, but the ambitions behind it are anything but. The move signals a deeper push into the sector. In fact, Sea’s digital finance arm had emerged as the group’s second-largest revenue generator in Q4 2024, surpassing e-commerce. We explored why there is more to the move than a mere rechristening.
Sea Ltd. also pumped $78 million into its digital banking arm, Maribank, aiming to scale up operations and strengthen its position in the region’s digital banking landscape, we reported this week.
The importance of financial services in Southeast Asia was not lost on Grab either. The Nasdaq-listed superapp has been quietly injecting capital into, and looking to expand the footprint of, its fintech division.
Grab wired several millions of fresh funds into its two key fintech entities earlier this year. Asia Kredit, the company’s consumer lending subsidiary, received $5 million while $550 million was injected into GP Network Asia.
Grab also announced leadership appointments in Singapore and Vietnam. Alejandro Osorio, who currently leads Grab Vietnam, has been appointed Managing Director of Grab Singapore. Ma Tuan Trong, Grab’s Country Commercial Head in Vietnam, will assume the role of Managing Director of Grab Vietnam.
We’ve been delivering several scoops based on our reading of company regulatory filings to Singapore’s ACRA. One such was the fundraising by Blue Planet Environmental Solutions, a waste management and upcycling company, which raised $6.2 million in a fresh funding round.
We also got wind that Nestle India has initiated talks to invest in Drools Pet Food and that Vietnamese electric two-wheeler manufacturing company Dat Bike is in advanced talks to raise a Series B funding round.
Indian electric two-wheeler maker Simple Energy is planning to go public by the second or third quarter of FY27, aiming to raise about $350 million through an IPO, co-founder Suhas Rajkumar told DealStreetAsia in an interview.
In Malaysia, discount retail chain Eco–Shop Marketing is targeting a valuation of 6.49 billion ringgit ($1.5 billion) for its initial share sale, in what will be Bursa Malaysia’s largest IPO so far in 2025.
Of private credit funds and other investment vehicles
When equity funding gets tough, startups go for private credit. This strategy has been the flavour of the season for some time now.
This week, robo adviser and digital wealth platform operator Syfe partnered with global asset manager BlackRock to provide accredited investors in Singapore with access to private credit investments focused on US middle market direct lending.
Also this week, SME financing platform Validus Group and Fintech Nation announced the creation of a $10-million private credit secured fund to provide embedded finance solutions to small businesses in Thailand and Indonesia.
Singapore’s Granite Asia, formerly GGV Capital, gathered $250 million in anchor commitments for its first-ever private credit strategy to chase deals in mid-sized companies in the Asia Pacific region.
Australian specialist private credit investment manager Zagga launched a new real estate private credit fund to meet growing demand from Southeast Asian investors. Zagga Real Estate Credit Fund is designed to meet increasing demand from Southeast Asian investors for exposure to Australia’s commercial real estate market.
Dubai-based Synergy Capital, founded by former ArcelorMittal executive Sudhir Maheshwari, is looking to raise $1 billion for its third Asia-focused private credit fund, while Avendus PE, an asset management arm of the KKR-backed Avendus Group, has raised over Rs 1,000 crore ($118 million) in the first close of its third private credit fund with a target corpus of Rs 2,000 crore.
TPG has collected $402 million so far for its first-ever mid-cap private equity fund for Asia’s developed markets. Its CEO Jon Winkelried had announced in February that the fund had reached almost half of its fundraising goal in the first close.
Analog Partners, the growth investing platform under Analog Capital (formerly Alto Partners), is said to have secured over $100 million in commitments for its debut fund. The mid-market private equity firm is targeting to raise around $250 million for the fund.
In a world where papal blessings compete with the spectre of war, staying grounded is harder than ever. But amid the noise, opportunities still flicker—for the sharp-eyed, the long-term-minded, and those willing to tune out the panic.
We’ll be watching closely as the next chapter unfolds—on the battlefield, in the boardroom, and in the balance sheets. As Bob Dylan once asked, “…how many times must the cannonballs fly… before they’re forever banned?” It’s a question that still echoes.
Until next week, stay curious, stay safe, and may peace prevail.
