Emerging Markets Roundup: August 9 - August 15 2023

Hi everyone, I’m Gautam. Every week I write the Spice Route newsletter, profiling tech in the five fastest growing regions in the world - India, SE Asia, MENA, Sub Saharan Africa and Latin America.

I’ve spent years immersed in these startup ecosystems as a founder and VC. If you’re a founder or PM building for these markets, or a VC looking to invest where the growth is, this newsletter is for you.

If you found this useful, share this with your friends and colleagues.

In Today’s Newsletter

🇮🇳 This week, Shaktimaan raises funding from YC and others to help applicants pass India’s notoriously difficult civil services exam (that they take several years off to study for), while Metashot builds a Wii like controller for playing cricket. In huge markets like India, even niche-sounding use cases can be massive opportunities.

🇮🇩 Blade Runner, Jakarta Edition: Indonesia’s Genexyz raises funding for building virtual influencers and meta-humans. What sounds like science fiction is increasingly common in the country.

🇨🇴 Colombia’s Avista raises funding to offer payroll backed loans to pensioners. While LatAm reduced poverty and improved living standards in the early 20th century, it also fell into a middle income trap, with low innovation and birth rates. As the region’s demographic dividend ends over the next few decades, pension spending is expected to rise dramatically.

🇰🇪 Education in Africa gets a boost; Kenya based Ed Partners raises debt funding to tackle education infrastructure. Education on the continent remains beset by multiple challenges, but solving physical infrastructure issues could go a long way towards fixing enrollment rates.

🇸🇦 One App, All Banks: Saudi Arabia’s Wadaie offers a unique value proposition - depositors can deposit money in any bank in the country without having to open a new account, allowing them to optimize their returns, while banks expand their client base effortlessly.

Who’s Getting Funded

Local companies building for local markets.

We’re going to see the emergence of regional unicorns in sectors from fintech to agtech, driven by knowledge of local idiosyncrasies or protected by local regulation.

Agtech

🇮🇩 PasarMikro, an Indonesia agtech platform providing farmers and middlemen a platform for secure transactions, payments and trade credit, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from DEG and Ceniarth.

Cleantech

🇸🇬 Blue Planet, a Singapore based company collecting waste from landfills and turning them into new products, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Bintang Capital.

Edtech

🇮🇳 Shaktimaan, an Indian AI powered edtech platform providing personalized learning and mentorship to UPSC (India’s civil services exam) aspirants, has raised $2M in Seed funding led by YCombinator, Fundersclub, GoodWater Capital, and other investors.

🇰🇪 Ed Partners, a Kenya based financing platform for education infrastructure, technology, and transport, has raised $1.5M in debt funding from Oikocredit.

Fintech

🇮🇳 Credgenics, an Indian tech enabled loan collection services platform, has raised $50M in Series B funding led by Accel and WestBridge Capital.

🇸🇬 Endowus, a Singapore based wealth management platform, has raised $35M in funding from Citi Ventures, Lightspeed, and others.

🇨🇴 Avista, a Colombian financial inclusion company offering payroll deductible loans to pensioners, teachers and members of the military, has raised a $12M credit facility.

🇸🇬 Boost Capital, a Singapore based client onboarding platform for financial institutions, has raised $2.5M in Seed funding from Village Global, Iterative Ventures, Hustle Fund, and other investors.

🇸🇦 Wadaie, a Saudi Arabia based fintech platform allowing depositors to earn returns on Shariah-compliant deposits without the need to open a new bank account, has raised an undisclosed amount of Pre-Seed funding led by RZM Investments.

🇿🇦 FinMeUp, a South Africa based personal finance platform, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by SAAD and Blu Sky Investments.

Healthtech

🇸🇬 Neurowyzr, a Singapore based brain health and performance company, has raised $2.1M in funding from Peak XV Partners.

🇮🇳 All Is Well, an AI enabled fitness platform addressing underperformance in competitive sports, has raised $250K from Bharat Founders Fund and angel investors.

HRtech

🇸🇬 Choys, a Singapore based HRTech and Insurance platform for boosting workforce productivity, engagement, and culture, has raised $1.1M in Seed funding from Antler and other investors.

Mobility

🇳🇬 Moove, a Nigerian revenue based vehicle financing platform for ride-share drivers, has raised $76M in equity and debt funding led by Mubadala.

🇻🇳 Dat Bike, a Vietnam based electric motorbike company, has raised $8M in funding led by Jungle Ventures.

🇮🇳 Bluwheelz, an Indian EV fleet as a service provider for clients in e-commerce, logistics, food delivery and other sectors, has raised $500K in Seed funding from Faad Network.

Proptech

🇮🇩 Goro, an Indonesian proptech platform enabling fractional property investments in the country, has raised $1M in Pre-Seed funding led by Iterative.

Supply Chain and Logistics

🇨🇴 Celes, a Colombian AI enabled inventory management platform for retail stores, has raised $1M in Seed funding led by Primeline.

Local companies building for global markets.

The pandemic accelerated two ongoing trends; product-led growth and a digital go-to-market became the norm, and enterprises had to digitize faster than ever. Community driven growth happens online, and the API-fication of tech has leveled the playing field when it comes to building software. Global companies in business automation, software and data infrastructure, AI, future of work, and web3 can now be built from anywhere.

Gaming

🇮🇳 MetaShot, an Indian gaming controller for cricket, has raised $400K in Pre-Seed funding from Inflection Point Ventures.

Web3

🇮🇩 Genexyz, an Indonesia based virtual influencer and meta human company, has raised $1M in Seed funding led by East Ventures.

Who’s Investing

🇱🇺 CVC Capital Partners, a Luxembourg based PE firm, has raised $4.45B for its new Asia fund.

🇸🇬 Singapore based Growtheum Capital Partners has secured the final close of its debut fund at $567M.

🇰🇷 🇮🇳 South Korean gaming giant Krafton has announced it will invest $150M in Indian gaming and entertainment startups over the next 3 years.

🇮🇳 Rainmatter, an Indian fintech and healthtech fund backed by Zerodha, has allocated ~$120M in capital with no exit mandates for Indian startups.

🇿🇦 🇬🇧 Founders Factory Africa has raised $114M in funding from Mastercard Foundation and Johnson & Johnson to serve technology startups across the African continent.

🇦🇪 Illuminati Capital, a UAE based crypto VC fund, has raised $50M to back early stage blockchain and Web3 gaming startups.

🇿🇦 South Africa based Knife Capital has reached the final close of its $50M Knife Fund III, a Series B expansion fund to invest in African startups with product-market fit.

🇵🇭 Philippines based venture builder AHG Lab has raised $4M to incubate 10 startups.

🇮🇳 Rogue Opportunities, an India based angel network, plans to invest ~$3M in Indian startups over the next 12 months.

🇦🇪 Gingo Partners, a UAE based investor outreach and startup services community for founders from emerging markets, has raised $350K from angels.

🇸🇬 🇮🇳 Antler, a global VC based in Singapore, has announced a new venture platform focused on ONDC (India’s Open Network for Digital Commerce) startups.

🇵🇸 Palestinian and diaspora angel investors have launched Peleset Angels to support early stage Palestinian startups.

Place of the Week

There’s a whole world out there to explore. Here’s a guide to visiting Lima.

Thank you for reading 🙏 

This newsletter is very early, and I’m exploring taking this in multiple different directions.

If you found this useful, share this with your friends and colleagues. 

Best,

Gautam