From news breaks to exclusive interviews, incisive analyses to in-depth reports, you’ll never miss a beat with DealStreetAsia. Let’s start our weekly recap with the biggest scoops.
Indonesian B2B platform GudangAda, which has been weighing a shutdown of its core business and return of capital to investors for over a year, has acquired shares from five of its biggest institutional investors, including Wavemaker Partners, Asia Partners, Alpha Wave Global, Pavilion Capital, and Peak XV, paving the way for their complete exit.
Indonesian aquatech startup FishLog is reportedly struggling to stay afloat amid multiple financial strains, including mounting receivables that are unlikely to be recovered, according to documents reviewed by DealStreetAsia and sources aware of the development.
Nipun Mehra, co-founder of shuttered Indonesian B2B marketplace Ula, is building a new AI-powered startup for back-office and customer support functions, marking a sharp pivot from the warung-tech model that once made him one of Southeast Asia’s most closely watched founders.
Peak XV Partners is weighing a partial or full exit from Indonesian coffee chain operator Kopi Kenangan, marking its second major liquidity event this year after selling a part of its stake in marketing tech firm Insider to General Atlantic in May.
This week, DealStreetAsia also released its latest report, Greater China Deal Review: Q2 2025, which showed that fundraising by startups based in Greater China rose 13.1% in Q2 2025, fuelled by Tencent Music’s whopping $2.4-billion acquisition of online audio platform Ximalaya, even as the deal volume declined 9.1%. On a year-on-year basis, Q2 2025 fared better with a 19.4% increase in deal value and an 8.6% uptick in deal count. Meanwhile, the report signals a revival in IPO activity among companies based in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. Get a copy of the report for more data and insights on quarterly and yearly fundraising trends as well as IPO activity in H1 2025.
LP-GP news
Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC announced an average annual return of 3.8% for the year ended March 31, 2025, the slowest in last five years. In an exclusive interview with Nikkei Asia, GIC chief investment officer Bryan Yeo said he does not yet see a bubble forming in the booming AI sector, despite a surge in generative AI and related infrastructure investments like semiconductors and data centres.
Blackstone has raised an additional $3.5 billion for its third pan-Asia buyout fund in the second quarter alone, despite the volatility triggered by Trump’s tariff threats against US trade partners. Blackstone Capital Partners Asia III has amassed $7.9 billion in commitments, inching closer to rival EQT’s BPEA Fund IX, which most recently mopped up $11.4 billion from the market.
Paris-headquartered Cathay Innovation, which manages approximately $3 billion in assets globally, looks at how collaborative AI businesses can be, instead of following the regular revenue metrics. “It’s a bit too soon to invest only in the metrics of revenue and valuation as these are changing very fast,” Denis Barrier, co-founder and CEO of Cathay Innovation, said in an exclusive interview.
World Bank Group member International Finance Corporation is investing up to $10 million in the latest bond issuance of global impact investor Impact Investment Exchange (IIX).
Thailand’s 10 Bridge Capital is set to launch a fund of up to $250 million by the end of the year that will invest in small and midsized businesses domestically and back their overseas expansion.
Motilal Oswal Alternates, the alternative investments arm of Motilal Oswal Group, has hit the final close of its sixth real estate fund, Indian Realty Excellence Fund VI, at Rs 2,000 crore ($231.5 million), marking a 65% jump over its predecessor.
Subhadeep Sanyal, a partner at Mumbai-based impact investor Omnivore, has stepped down to lead the India operations at a regional venture builder focused on climate innovation.
Sameer Brij Verma, the former managing director of Nexus Venture Partners, is ditching the conventional partnership model for his new $150-million early-stage fund, Northpoint Capital. Verma believes that a solo GP model will allow him to stay close to early-stage founders and remain entrepreneurial in his investing approach.
Veteran Chinese investment banker Fang Fenglei has teamed up with Middle Eastern private equity heavyweight Hazem Ben-Gacem to launch BlueFive Capital, a new investment platform targeting high-growth opportunities across emerging markets.
Deal updates
Indonesian e-commerce enabler SIRCLO has raised a total of $38.3 million in two tranches this month, per the company’s recent regulatory filings reviewed by DealStreetAsia. In the first tranche, reported by DealStreetAsia on July 10, the startup received $10.5 million from Vertex Ventures SEA & India; Sinarmas’s investment arm SMDV; and Sun Tzu Tech, an entity affiliated with East Ventures.
Arpwood Partners, a private equity (PE) firm founded by renowned Indian investment banker Rajeev Gupta and ex-TPG fund manager Amol Jain, is in talks to invest in radiology service provider Teleradiology Solutions, as its founder and CEO Dr Arjun Kalyanpur looks to divest his stake.
Private equity giants Warburg Pincus and EQT are evaluating a potential investment in India’s Nash Industries as the precision-engineered components maker looks to raise its first equity funding.
FMO has proposed to invest another $50 million in Indian non-banking financial company SK Finance (formerly Esskay Fincorp), about two years after the Dutch development bank made a similar commitment to the firm.
Farizon, the new energy commercial vehicle unit of Chinese automaker Geely, said its methanol-hydrogen electric vehicle unit has secured $200 million in its latest funding round.
BINAR, an Indonesian digital transformation and edtech startup, has acquired the technology and core R&D talent behind QUTKE, a no-code AI agent builder developed in China.
China’s full-stack AI chipmaker Sunrise has recently secured 1 billion yuan ($139.3 million) in its latest funding round to consolidate its market share in the home-grown advanced graphics processing unit sector.
NUS Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of the National University of Singapore (NUS), has committed S$150 million ($116 million) for the NUS VC Programme that aims to support early-stage tech innovation.
BrioHealth Solutions, which develops implantable medical devices to address advanced heart failure, has secured $100 million in a strategic funding round, roping in several blue-chip investors, including HongShan and Gaorong Ventures.
Chocolate Finance has raised $15 million in a Series A+ funding round led by Nikko Asset Management, as it looks to expand beyond Singapore and enter Hong Kong after securing a regulatory licence there.
Jakarta-based Alpha JWC Ventures has launched SpeakUp, a whistleblower platform, designed to strengthen corporate governance practice across its portfolio companies in Southeast Asia.
Vietnam-based used motorcycle platform OKXE has completed a 20 billion won (approximately $14.5 million) Series A funding round from Korea’s Kwangju Bank and existing investors JB Financial Group and The Invention Lab.
Temasek-backed life sciences investor ClavystBio has co-anchored the $11.6-million Series A funding round of Respiree, a healthtech company focused on AI-powered patient monitoring.
Deep dives
Malaysia-based early-stage venture capital firm First Move is leveraging the democratisation of AI, and its borderless nature, to set up an AI-focused venture builder to create the next generation of “one-person billion-dollar companies”. First Move is looking at supporting individual builders, such as with strategic direction on creating functional products or services that can be commercialised.
Six months after regulatory oversight of crypto assets shifted from the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (Bappebti) to the Financial Services Authority (OJK), Indonesia’s cryptocurrency sector is undergoing a significant transformation. Industry watchers, however, say that the real catalyst for long-term adoption will hinge less on capital markets and more on how far regulators are willing to integrate crypto into the financial mainstream.
For most commuters in Metro Manila—the Philippines’s capital region—the mode of travel is rarely driven by concerns over climate change. Instead, practicality trumps carbon footprint in a city crippled by gridlocked streets and poor mass transit. Yet when Green GSM rolled out its electric taxi service in the country last month, it managed to create quite a buzz among urban commuters. Will VinFast be able to pull off a success story here after Vietnam?
Angkas, a motorcycle taxi app in the Philippines backed by Malaysian private equity firm Creador, has recorded a 31% increase in losses in 2024 on the back of a decline in its full-year revenue, regulatory filings show. The company’s net loss for the financial year ended December 31, 2024, widened to 438.6 million pesos (about $7.7 million) from 334.3 million pesos a year earlier, according to its filings with the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission.
Adrian Gunadi, co-founder and former CEO of the beleaguered Indonesian P2P lending firm Investree, has assumed the role of CEO at JTA Investree Doha, a joint venture between Investree and Qatar-based JTA International Holdings, even as he has been named a suspect in a fraud investigation involving Investree.
An increasing number of sovereign wealth funds are renewing their interest in China, signifying a shift of sentiment towards the world’s second-largest economy, a recent survey published by US-based asset manager Invesco shows.
And finally…
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