AI is supercharging growth for Asian tech firms

If there was one thing that made jaws drop for investors, entrepreneurs, and observers in the global tech community this past week, it was 英伟达 ’s supercharged growth, powered by AI.

In its latest quarterly results, California-headquartered Nvidia shared stellar guidance for its GPU (graphics processing unit) chips—of earning US$11 billion in the next quarter, which is 50% higher than analysts' predictions. After all, Nvidia is the company that provides GPUs to OpenAI to power supercomputers behind ChatGPT.?

And boom, the company’s shares rallied so much that its valuation briefly touched US$1 trillion earlier this week. This year, so far, Nvidia stock has soared a whopping 165%. And the company has emerged as a clear winner in the AI race—it controls 88% of the global GPU market and GPUs are needed for computers to run generative AI models.

Back in Asia, Nvidia is collaborating with SoftBank Corp, a part of the Japanese investment giant SoftBank Group, to create a platform for generative AI and 5G/6G applications based on the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip . The plan is to deploy the platform at a network of interconnected data centers—to be built by SoftBank Corp—so that they can host a range of generative AI and 5G/6G apps at a reduced cost and energy consumption.

Meanwhile, Singapore-based e-commerce giant Lazada has just launched a ChatGPT-powered chatbot called LazzieChat. The AI chatbot can answer shopping-related queries in a natural manner while suggesting relevant products or topics to users. As per Lazada, LazzieChat is part of the company’s efforts to build a high-quality digital ecosystem for long-term growth.

Elsewhere in Asia, Vietnam-based browser and search engine provider Coc Coc has unveiled AI products powered by GPT 3.5, the large language model behind ChatGPT. Its AI chatbot, Coc Coc AI Chat can process English questions and churn out answers in Vietnamese, which makes it stand out in the market. The company’s AI search engine, Coc Coc AI Search, provides summarized content from search results in just a couple of seconds. The company now aims to create an AI ecosystem.

These aren’t the only Asian companies leveraging generative AI to supercharge their growth. There are plenty of them. With the tech industry in the middle of a transformational leap, AI might just become a must-have for tech firms to survive and thrive.

On that note, let’s dive into this week’s recap.

Emerging Opportunities

Money keeps flowing quite robustly into Southeast Asia, which wouldn’t have been surprising (in a good way, of course) if not for the notion of lingering funding winter. What this means is more and more opportunities for budding regional ventures that can prove their worth.

• Singapore-based Indies Capital Partners is reportedly raising US$250 million for its fourth credit fund for Southeast Asia to cater to the growing appetite for debt funding in the larger startup ecosystem. The alternative asset manager had closed its last credit fund at over US$140 million in 2022.
• Singaporean VC Trirec has joined hands with Thai energy company Innopower to launch a US$100 million venture fund to back decarbonization solutions. Called Energy Ignition Ventures, the fund will invest in companies that have a proven track record of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the agriculture, mobility, buildings, and energy sectors.
• Chinese search engine giant Baidu has created a US$140 million fund to invest in local startups that are working on generative AI. The idea is to incubate projects that are built on top of its Ernie AI model—Baidu’s answer to rival ChatGPT.? IDG Capital will assess pitches from founders after which Baidu will write a check of up to 10 million yuan for a select few.?
• An accelerator program supported by the Indonesian government, Startup Studio Indonesia, is putting together its seventh cohort . The program helps early-stage firms—that are at the pre-series A funding stage or earlier—find product-market fit and grow their businesses. The selection criteria include having at least six months of traction with a 5% month-on-month growth and the potential to scale up.

What Stood Out This Week

Many things, primarily those businesses that are expanding, evolving, or entering a new phase of growth, in a significant way. For instance:

• Hong Kong- and Singapore-headquartered fintech firm Hyphen Group rebranded to MoneyHero Group , just as it entered into a merger agreement with blank-check firm Bridgetown Holdings for a US$154 million public listing. A blank-check firm aka SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) is a shell company formed strictly to raise capital through an IPO. It first acquires a private company and then lists it on a stock exchange.
• Indonesia’s JSCC - COFFEE , which makes smart coffee machines that can serve over 20 types of coffee and non-coffee drinks, has raised an undisclosed series B round led by Cool Japan Fund and Living Lab Ventures for expanding footprints across the country. This development becomes a lot more interesting when you consider Singapore-based tech-enabled coffee chain Flash Coffee raising a US$50 million series B round earlier this month. It seems investors’ appetite is rising for all things coffee in Southeast Asia.
• GenPrime , a Singapore-headquartered startup providing affordable fertility health services, has opened its first clinics in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. The three-year-old startup, backed by Peter Thiel, plans to launch a total of 15 clinics across Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore over the next three years.

Buzzing Deals

The past week was quite active! Interesting startups from all walks of life across Southeast Asia landed checks from VCs, indicating a demand for specialized solutions that can stand out in the crowd. Here are some of the most buzzworthy deals:

• Singapore-based ZUZU Hospitality , a revenue management platform for independent hotels, has landed a US$9 million series B from SoftBank Ventures Asia and a handful of investors. So far, Zuzu Hospitality has helped over 2,500 properties across the Asia Pacific manage their operations, decide on optimal room prices, streamline invoicing and payments, and get discovered on Google. The company will use the funding to improve its product, add AI capabilities for guest management and pricing, and expand to 5,000 hotel partners.
• Indonesian social commerce firm Evermos , which focuses on providing Shariah-compliant products through 160,000 resellers in Indonesia and 1,600 brand partners, has received US$39 million in series C funding from International Finance Corporation (IFC) and IFC Emerging Asia Fund. Evermos will use the fresh money to bolster its reseller network by expanding its presence in Java and Sumatra.
• Jakarta-headquartered D2C brand aggregator Grow Commerce has raised US$6.5 million from AC Ventures and others. Founded in 2013, the company used to be a fashion e-commerce startup. However, in February last year, it pivoted to adopt the famed American startup Thrasio’s business model and now acquires, operates, and scales marketplace brands across Southeast Asia.
• Singaporean startup GOODGANG LABS , which is building an avatar-based communication platform on a metaverse where people can express themselves through avatars, has secured a U$2 million seed check from Kakao, Naver, and Line. The company has created an AI-enabled expression tech that lets avatars mimic the actual facial expressions of its users, and it will use the fresh funds to further develop it.
• Singaporean startup AMILI , a precision gut microbiome company that creates gut healing products and solutions for Asians, has just raised an undisclosed sum from VC firm East Venture. Its solutions are unique as they are dependent on factors like diet, food ingredients, culture, lifestyle, and the environment. The fresh funds will be used to address prevalent gut health issues in the Indonesian context.

And that’s the wrap for this edition of?#ICYMI . We will continue to curate the weekly highlights of the Asian tech ecosystem in case you missed what made the buzz in the week that just went by. You can subscribe to?#ICYMI ?to get it every Thursday to stay abreast of noteworthy tech developments.