Orbit Startups: 2022 in 22 Highlights

Friends of Orbit,

2022 was a milestone year: Peter Thiel made his first investment into Pakistan with PriceOye, Dastgyr closed the country's largest Series A, we held the first Orbit demo day in Dubai and launched Europe's first silver-tech accelerator. Meanwhile, Oscar Ramos was appointed SOSV's newest general partner after devoting his last 7 years to championing scientists, engineers and tech founders at Orbit. As we enter 2023 with even more ambitious plans for emerging and frontier markets, we'd like to thank our mentors and founders worldwide for your relentless support and your commitment to growth. Check out the highlights below and stay in touch with us on?LinkedIn.

Until next time,

The Orbit team

DECEMBER

Yourstory?Gulf Edition interviews William about Orbit Startups and our plans for the GCC, following our first demo day in Dubai.?

Business Insider?interviews 12 of the VC firms most active in e-commerce on what they're looking for in an investment — and the biggest bets they're making for the future. Learn from Orbit Startups, Y Combinator, Lightspeed, Lerer Hippeau and more.

India's tech veterans told their stories at?BUILDER Series, Orbit's signature event of first-hand accounts from the builders behind the world's most iconic companies.

NOVEMBER

Orbit 2 startups?showcase their progress at our Singapore demo day.

Full house at Orbit Shanghai Launch Party with long-time friends and mentors.

OCTOBER

LA- and Beijing-based?Zebra Labs?raises $5M to help celebrities enter the metaverse.

Orbit Taipei Launch Party with mentors and partners who have supported us for the last five years.

Orbit and HAX cohosted the Shanghai reception of SOSV Climate Tech Summit, with speakers including Lowercarbon's Chris Sacca and MIT professor Dr. Yet-Ming Chiang.

SEPTEMBER

Singapore's Bizbaz, a customer intelligence and risk assessment startup, talks with TechCrunch about its?$4 million?round led by HSBC Asset Management.

Pre-Demo Day happy hour in Dubai, before we showcase 10 companies from the?Orbit 1?cohort hailing from?India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Singapore.

AUGUST

Peter Thiel?backs electronics platform?PriceOye?in?first Pakistan investment. CEO Adnan Shaffi told TechCrunch: “We realized that in a market where there's a trust deficit between the consumer and the brand, the only way a marketplace can work is the managed marketplace model, which originally started in China by JD.com, then got replicated by Flipkart and other players in Southeast Asia."

William weighs on the role of technology at Leaders in Islamabad Business Summit 2022

JULY

Oscar Ramos?was appointed SOSV's newest general partner. Learn about Oscar's journey from being a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering to VC.

Meanwhile, we visited?Octopus, which raised?$5 million?to keep waste products out of crowded landfills in Indonesia.

JUNE

Pakistan's Dastgyr?raises?$37 million?in record Series A to become the region's Alibaba Group.

William Bao Bean speaks at?Vivatech?on investing in emerging and frontier markets.

MAY

As the Shanghai lockdown drags on, we held a virtual trip to Egypt's Luxor Temple to explore its unspoiled splendors.

Over in Europe,?Next Age?– Europe's first silver-tech accelerator launched and supported Orbit Startups?– is celebrating the progress of its first cohort.

APRIL

India's VideoVerse?raises?$46.8 million?for its AI-powered video editing SaaS.

MARCH

Al Jazeera?interviews William Bao Bean, Managing Director of Orbit Startups, on Pakistan's investment outlook.

FEBRUARY

Kenya's MarketForce?raises?$40 million?Series A for its retail distribution platform.

JANUARY

Voila?talks with TechCrunch about raising $6M for its AI-powered storefronts for online creators. To train its model, Voila crawled around 50 million style photos and learned over 300 different attributes related to apparel items.