Of fintech buzz and resilience

After a dazzling week with high-profile events like TOKEN2049 , F1 Grand Prix, and Asia PE-VC Summit hosted by DealStreetAsia , Singapore is all charged up to strengthen its position as one of the most happening financial hubs.?

Singapore’s financial regulator, Monetary Authority of Singapore—which last month unveiled a strategy to make the country an international fintech center by 2025 and partnered with India to give its fintech startups a leg up—is now collaborating with Convergence Blended Finance to launch a US$3.5 million grant program for early-stage projects in blended finance space.

Convergence Blended Finance is a global network for blended finance—which is a practice to attract commercial capital toward projects that contribute to sustainable development by deploying financing from public and philanthropic sources. What this means is, Singapore is working on financing projects that will help the world become sustainable and catalyze its transition to net-zero carbon emission.?

In another good news, the city-state has been named as one of the top five fintech ecosystems in 2021 along with Silicon Valley, New York, London, and Hong Kong in a recent report by Startup Genome , a global policy advisory and research firm.?

However, it isn’t just Singapore that is witnessing the fintech revolution. The entire Asian region has fared well when it comes to backing and nurturing financial technology startups.

As per the Startup Genome’s report, Asian fintech startups raised about a billion dollars in Series A rounds last year. And this number has already touched US$849 million in the first five months of 2022.?Clearly, this is a sign of a conducive environment for early-stage fintech players.?

What's more interesting is this—out of 200 fintech unicorns that were created globally between 2017 and 2021, 38 billion-dollar companies rose from Asia. This made the region the third largest fintech unicorn creator after North America and Europe, which produced 98 and 44 fintech unicorns, respectively, in the last five years.?

Aside from the continuing buzz in the Asian fintech sector,?what caught our attention is the comeback of the online travel firms in the region as well as how bigger tech firms like Grab and Bukalapak are tapping new growth drivers.

?On that note, let’s dive in for this week’s recap.?

The resilience of online travel firms

After two years of laying low, online travel firms in Asia are rising again.?

Indonesia’s Traveloka has recently secured a US$300 million funding round from Indonesia Investment Authority, BlackRock, Allianz Global Investors, and Orion Capital Asia.?

The company wants to use the fresh funds to strengthen its balance sheet. Now that travel is booming again, Traveloka is shutting down its food delivery arm, which it started in 2018 and expanded during the pandemic, as well as online grocery and on-demand logistics services that were kicked off this year so that it can prioritize its core business.?

Meanwhile, Singapore-based online travel firm Klook’s revenue has shot up 300% quarter-on-quarter on the back of steep growth in cross-border travel in the Asia Pacific. With the coronavirus cases subsiding in the region, Klook has also seen a 140% increase year-on-year in searches on its travel and experience platform, which has pushed up its bookings so much so that the startup has exceeded its pre-Covid-19 cross-border revenue by 40% for its best-performing markets.

Bukalapak and Grab tap new growth drivers

At a time when Indonesian e-commerce platform Bukalapak is fiercely competing with Tokopedia and Shopee to gain market share, its online-to-offline solution Mitra—which it started in 2017 to help the country's small retailers procure physical goods to sell—has turned out to be its key growth driver.?

As per a Tech in Asia report, Mitra now accounts for 57% of the company's revenue, and its share is expected to go up to 69% by the end of 2024. The flourishing Mitra business has contributed greatly to Bukalapak's revenue growth of 105% in the second quarter of 2022 over a year ago period.

Similarly, Grab is betting more and more on digital banks in Southeast Asia even as its shares keep falling. Following the launch of? GXS Bank —a digibank it created in partnership with Singtel—in Singapore last month, Grab is all set to roll out digibanks in Indonesia and Malaysia next year.

In Indonesia, Grab will collaborate with Singtel and Emtek Group to launch a digibank. All three companies have a stake in Bank Fama International which will serve as the foundation for this digibank. On the other hand, GXS Bank will enter Malaysia, having already won a digital bank license from Bank Negara Malaysia in April.

The buzz continues in the crypto land

London-headquartered crypto lender Nexo is looking to invest in or acquire several companies in Asia that can either help it expand its footprint in the region or allow it to move into new verticals within the crypto space, Tatiana Metodieva, the company’s head of corporate finance and investments, told Tech in Asia. Nexo is already in advanced discussions to buy the distressed Singaporean crypto platform, Vauld.

In another part of the Asian continent, Japan is upping its game in Web3 space. Earlier this week, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida said the country will increase its investments in non-fungible tokens and metaverse tech as well as expand its use of Web3 services.?

Some noteworthy deals

South Korean internet behemoth Naver is buying Poshmark , a Nasdaq-listed secondhand fashion e-commerce firm for US$1.2 billion. The acquisition will allow Naver to expand its presence in the fashion recommerce space as well as enter the US market.

On the fundraising side, Thailand-based food delivery company Line Man Wongnai has joined the country’s unicorn club after landing a US$265 million series B check from Line Corporation and Singapore’s GIC. In another notable deal, Singapore-based shopping and rewards platform ShopBack is raising US$80 million from 65 Equity Partners in the second tranche of series F funding, which will make the round touch US$160 million.

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 Friday to stay abreast of noteworthy tech developments.