Emerging Markets Roundup: June 14 - June 20 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.

I would love feedback on this edition and suggestions on what you’d like to see in a newsletter like this. Just reply back to this email.

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Opportunities

A section I have in every edition of the newsletter is about local companies building for global markets, my thesis being that world class companies in certain sectors can now be built from anywhere in the world.

A rising tide lifts all boats - in this case, the move to product-led growth, a digital go-to-market, and VC dollars being invested over Zoom post pandemic have leveled the global playing field.

But certain countries still hold an edge. We’ll start with the most obvious example - India.

• India has one of the largest developer bases in the world - between 2.5M to 3M (depending on the source). A large number of developers translates into a large number of people who use software daily, helping Indian founders better understand their customers and build better products.

• The country also benefits from a long history of providing IT consulting services (~55% of the global market), which gives them the ability to cost effectively engage with their customers post sale. This kind of knowledge work has helped local workers build domain expertise across a variety of industries.

• India also possesses an ecosystem of enablers - both domestic and global investors, as well as countless angels, accelerators, and communities for founders to learn from. That’s not to forget the founders and employees who’ve picked up best practices at marquee companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, and are now applying it to their home market.

• Then there’s the lower overall personnel costs, driven by a wide base of skilled engineering talent and fresh graduates.

This got me thinking - what other countries possess some of these characteristics?

The key indicator here is the size of the developer pool, itself a proxy for better software products, better customer success and stronger domain expertise. Quantity is not a replacement for quality, so I also looked at HackerRank data. Since this is a newsletter focused on emerging markets, I limited my research to countries in these regions.

The data on the number of developers varied widely, so I’ve taken the best approximation from a number of data sources. Here’s what I found:

Brazil is the clear winner here - having both a large developer population as well as a high Hackerrank score. The country also benefits from having a large home market, as well as being in a similar time zone as the US and parts of Western Europe. While Brazil’s enabling ecosystem still has some ways to go to match India’s, breakout successes such as Nubank and PagSeguro have set the tone for an exciting future.

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

🇮🇳 Unnati Agri, an Indian agricultural fintech platform nurturing farmer entrepreneurship and minimizing the risks in farming, has raised ~$3.5M in Pre-Series B funding led by IPL Biologicals’ Family Office.

B2B Marketplaces

🇺🇸 🇳🇬 Eze, a US based, Nigerian wholesale B2B marketplace for new and used electronics, has raised $3.7M in funding led by Right Side Capital Management.

🇮🇳 The Yarn Bazaar, an Indian B2B marketplace for yarn and yarn related requirements, has raised $1.8M in Pre-Series A funding led by Rajiv Dadlani Group and Equanimity Ventures.

🇵🇭 Shoppable Business, a Filipino B2B business procurement marketplace, has raised $1.15M in Pre-Seed funding led by Foxmont Capital Partners and Seedstars International Ventures.

Cleantech

🇮🇳 Myplan8, an Indian cleantech startup helping individuals track, reduce and offset their carbon footprint, has raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Seed funding from angels.

Drones

🇮🇳 ideaForge, a vertically integrated Indian company designing and manufacturing drones for mapping, security, and surveillance, has raised ~$7.3M in pre-IPO funding from institutional investors.

E-Commerce and E-Commerce Enablement

🇮🇩 Sirclo, an Indonesian e-commerce enablement company helping businesses set up online storefronts and providing a channel management service for brands, has raised $10.5M in Series C funding led by Vertex Ventures.

Fintech

🇮🇩 Amartha, an Indonesian p2p lending platform disbursing working capital loans to medium and small businesses in Indonesia, has raised $100M in debt financing from Community Investment Management.

🇨🇴 FinMaq, a Colombian fintech company building digital financial solutions for underbanked individuals and SMEs, has raised $3.5M in equity and $20M in debt funding.

🇲🇼 Yellow, a Malawian asset financing platform helping Africans with financing smartphones and solar systems, has raised $14M in Series B funding led by Convergence Partners.

🇮🇳 Volt Money, an Indian lending platform for instant loans secured against mutual funds, has raised $1.5M in Pre-Seed funding from Titan Capital, Kunal Shah, and others.

🇮🇳 TransBnk, an Indian fintech startup building a programmable transaction banking platform for B2B transactions, has raised $1M in Seed funding led by 8i Ventures.

🇮🇳 Cloudbankin, an Indian embedded finance platform providing low-code digital lending solutions to financial institutions, has raised $400K in funding from SaaS accelerator Upekkha, Kube VC and angels.

🇸🇬 Pilon, a Singaporean cloud based cashflow financing and factoring solution, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Kaya Founders.

Healthtech

🇮🇳 Mykare, an Indian healthtech startup connecting patients with hospitals for surgeries, has raised ~$2M in Seed funding from On Deck ODX, Stanford Angels, and other investors.

🇮🇳 Neuphony, an Indian brain health company building the country’s first wearable EEG headband that tracks brain waves, has raised an undisclosed amount of pre-Series A funding from ah! Ventures.

Mobility

🇮🇳 Everest Fleet, an Indian fleet management company supplying cars to taxi aggregators, has raised $20M in funding led by Uber.

🇮🇳 Starya Mobility, an Indian EV scooter startup providing retrofitting kits to convert petrol two wheelers to electric vehicles, has raised $2M from ah! Ventures and Exedy Clutch India.

🇲🇾 Carsome, a Malaysian used car marketplace, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from existing backers 65 Equity Partners, Qatar Investment Authority, and others.

Proptech

🇨🇴 La Haus, a Colombian real estate marketplace streamlining the buying and selling of properties in Latin America, has raised $62M in Series C funding led by NFX, Next Play Capital, Acrew Capital, and Kaszek Ventures.

🇮🇳 HomeLane, an Indian home interior solutions company, has raised ~$9.1M in bridge round funding from existing investors.

Supply Chain and Logistics

🇵🇪 Zuru, a Peruvian company providing digital cargo insurance coverage for small businesses in the supply chain, logistics and foreign trade space, has raised $680K in Pre-Seed funding led by Carabela.vc.

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.

Adtech

🇮🇳 Anantadi, an Indian startup building an AI-powered programmatic ad platform for on demand and virtual product placement for the entertainment industry, has raised an undisclosed amount of Seed funding from SucSEED Indovation Fund.

Creator Economy

🇲🇽 VIOO, a Mexican marketplace connecting companies with photographers for visual content creation, has raised $1M in Seed funding.

Horizontal SaaS

🇮🇳 Thriwe, an Indian loyalty, rewards, and benefits platform helping businesses drive customer retention, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Saudi conglomerate Al Mutlaq.

Spacetech

🇮🇳 Digantara, an Indian spacetech company building space situational awareness infrastructure to safeguard spacecraft and space operations, has raised $10M in Series A1 funding led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia India/SE Asia).

🇸🇬 Zero-Error Systems (ZES), a Singaporean company building technology to protect semiconductor devices from radiation, has raised $7.5M in Series A funding from Airbus Ventures and the Dart Family Office.

Vertical SaaS

🇺🇸 🇨🇱 FZ Sports, a US and Chile based platform connecting sports audiences, rights holders, and brands, has raised $74M in funding from 777 Partners and others.

Web3

🇸🇬 🇻🇳 Poko, a Singapore and Vietnam based web3 startup enabling fiat to crypto on-ramps for digital businesses, has raised $4.5M in Seed funding from Y Combinator, Global Founders Capital, and others.

🇮🇳 TaxNodes, an Indian crypto tax computation and tax filing platform, has raised $1.6M in Seed funding from notable angels in the web3 and wealthtech space.

Who’s Investing

🇺🇸 🇮🇳 Tiger Global, a US based global tech investment firm, has raised $2.7B for its Fund 16 to invest in enterprise and in India.

🇮🇩 Argor, formerly Go-Ventures (linked to Indonesia’s GoTo Group), has announced the launch of a new $240M fund to invest in SE Asia.

🇺🇸 🇸🇬 Recharge Capital, a US and Singapore based private investment firm, has closed the first tranche of its $200M Women’s Healthcare Investment Vehicle.

🇦🇪 🇸🇦 Saudi Venture Capital has invested $30M in UAE headquartered Shorooq Partners $150M Bedaya Fund II, to back early-stage startups in the region.

🇺🇸 🇸🇦 Plug and Play, a US based venture investor and accelerator, has announced it will launch a $100M fund to invest in Saudi startups, with support from Jada Fund of Funds.

🇮🇳 Airavat Capital, an Indian public equities investment firm, has announced the launch of its $40M global technology fund, Airavat Global Technology Fund R.

🇧🇷 🇺🇸 Positive Ventures, a Brazil and US based venture firm, has announced a $25M impact fund to invest in early-stage cleantech, edtech, healthtech, medtech, and fintech companies in Latin America.

Place of the Week

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

Thank you for reading 🙏 

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

I’d love the feedback - please reply back with any suggestions, requests, or questions you have for me.

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Best,

Gautam