This week has a number of data points and analyses that could offer some insight into investor sentiment in the private equity and venture capital sector, and the broader operating environment in key markets in South and Southeast Asia, and Greater China.
Among the significant news events were the earnings reports from Southeast Asia’s former unicorns, as the market parsed their financial statements for indications of where their growth would be coming from.
Sea, the parent company of Shopee and Garena, regained its $100 billion market capitalisation after its second-quarter results.
The New York-listed company saw its share price surge to its highest in three-and-a-half years, after it posted numbers underpinned by e-commerce unit Shopee and its digital payments service Monee. It also raised its full-year guidance for gaming unit Garena, allaying concerns of its over-reliance on its hit game Free Fire.
In Indonesia, GoTo posted positive pre-tax earnings as losses shrank by 80%, even though analysts point out that its key segments – on-demand services and fintech – registered softer gains. Analysts point to growth limitations in its business units The Jakarta-listed shares in the company, which have been trading poorly for the better part of their public life, rose about 14% after the results were released.
Meanwhile, a mega transaction in Singapore – the $1.3 billion investment by US infrastructure and real estate investment firm Stonepeak into the Warburg Pincus-backed Princeton Digital Group – helped lift funding activity among startups in Southeast Asia to a high in July. Without that, deal activity would have been even lower than in the month before, and continued the downward trend of overall fundraising across the region, according to data tracked by DealStreetAsia.
In India, startup fundraising in the first six months of 2025 was down by more than a third from the same period last year, and there was a drop in the number of large deals, as the India Deal Review shows.
Amid a cautious early-stage funding environment, Speciale Invest, a deep-science and technology-focused venture capital firm in the country, has closed its third fund at some $68 million. Read about the VC’s thesis for a ‘generational venture opportunity’.
On a more positive note, as many as 15 first-time funds in India have raised a whopping $1.12 billion so far in 2025. While it may indicate some confidence in the country’s long-term investment potential, experts say the headline figures may not fully capture the underlying dynamics.
Significant fundings
Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) has closed a $40 million investment in Hyderabad-based Software-as-a-Service firm Darwinbox, to facilitate its global expansion plans. The transaction, through OTPP’s late-stage and growth investment arm, Teachers’ Venture Growth, gave Peak XV Partners – which first invested in the firm in 2019 – a partial exit, and has brought Darwinbox’s valuation up to about $1 billion.
In China, Legend Capital and IDG Capital have jointly led a Series A funding round of over 300 million yuan ($41.8 million) in BCIFlex, a three-year-old Chinese startup developing a brain-computer interface (BCI) following a similar path as Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
AI- and robotics-centric startups are on track to be the year’s fundraising winners in China, with robust government backing amid an entrepreneurial boom in the sector. Private-market investors have completed 314 investments in AI and robotics startups headquartered in China over the first seven months of 2025, overtaking 2024’s all-year total.
International Finance Corporation is considering financing SK leaveo Co Ltd, a South Korean producer of biodegradable materials and subsidiary of Seoul-listed SKC. The $70 million in proceeds are earmarked for production facilities in Vietnam.
Dutch development bank FMO is looking at $30 million in funding for the Indian non-banking financial company Annapurna Finance Private Limited, which lends to rural microentrepreneurs. Up to 5% of the loan proceeds will be designated for water sanitation and hygiene or qualifying green loans.
Temasek Trust’s Catalytic Capital for Climate and Health (C3H) has led the $11.6-million Series A funding in Equatic, a US company developing seawater electrolysis technology for carbon removal and green hydrogen production. Singapore-based Kibo Invest co-led the funding round.
Indonesian fintech company OY! Indonesia has secured $15 million in new capital, led by MUIP Garuda Fund I — a joint initiative among MUFG Innovation Partners, MUFG Bank, and PT Bank Danamon Indonesia. The filings also indicate that the funding was secured at a valuation lower than the previous round.
Singapore-based Oatside has issued preference shares worth S$55.3 million (around $43 million) to new and existing investors, including Granite Asia.
Reads for the weekend
There are concerns over the transparency of, and potential political interference in, in Indonesian soveriegn wealth fund Danantara’s investment decisions. Among the red flags are how the fund’s early investments appear contradictory to its stated mission, and yet another bailout of national carrier Garuda Indonesia.
Separately, Danantara has also been tasked by Indonesia’s president to lead the creation of a dedicated hub for the country’s Muslim pilgrims to Mecca.
Meanwhile, two of the country’s P2P lending platforms, Akseleran and KoinWorks, are under growing pressure from their lenders amid an ever more challenging operating environment, as our team uncovers.
In Vietnam, policy reform to attract, and retain, blockchain capital, assets, and activity is underway. How will the country compete against the more established digital capital centres in Singapore and Hong Kong?
Deal to watch
B.Grimm Group, Thailand’s oldest conglomerate, is understood to be exploring options for its core power business. Read this exclusive.
