Emerging Markets Roundup: October 18 - October 24 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, a VC looking to invest where the growth is, or you want to stop falling behind on what’s happening in the rest of the world, this newsletter is for you.

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Apologies for the late edition this week - I’ve been battling a nasty viral infection.

Highlights from Last Week’s Funding Announcements

🇮🇳 From India to the world; 3 companies with global ambitions raise funding this week. Zetwerk simplifies manufacturing supply chains, Fingerprint provides real-time device intelligence on your users, and Giga ML helps enterprises deploy customizable LLMs to their own servers.

Why it’s interesting: Zetwerk is particularly interesting; it’s doing to manufacturing what Flexport did to shipping. We’re all used to picking items off Amazon, ordering them and have them show up at our doorstep. Manufacturers, however, don’t have this luxury. Zetwerk raises $120M this week to shore up every part of the manufacturing supply chain, from supplier discovery, communication, pricing, and routing.

🇸🇬 A small city state with galactic ambition: Singapore’s Qosmosys raises a gargantuan $100M seed for its lunar rockets, and Cosmos Innovation raises funding for its next generation solar cell.

Why it’s interesting: We may be entering a golden era for space exploration; Reduced launch costs (from reusable rockets), increasing demand for satellite services, renewed Government interest driven by national pride, and advancements in AI and robotics are resulting in a Cambrian explosion of new companies. Speaking of AI, Cosmos Innovation claims that its AI platform has increased solar cell efficiency by 30%, while reducing overall costs.

🇲🇽 Mexico’s Nexu raises $20M to build a financing platform for people looking to buy a car.

Why it’s interesting: I spoke about opportunities in the mobility market in Latin America a few weeks ago. Auto financing in Mexico today is beset by the issues most legacy lenders face; analog processes and low approval rates. The company claims its proprietary risk algorithm can approve twice as many car buyers as traditional banks, and do it instantly at the point of sale.

🇳🇬 US, Nigeria and India based Husk Power Systems raises $43M to build mini-grids across Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Why it’s interesting: The World Bank estimates that mini-grids have the potential to provide 500 million people with clean, cheap energy by 2030, transforming lives and local economies. Husk Power Systems is a pioneer in this regard, evolving from being a pure-play mini-grid operator to an integrated platform providing energy-efficient appliances, e-mobility, agro processing, cold storage, and financing.

🇦🇪 Two proptech fundraises in UAE this week - Nomad Homes raises $20M for its residential real estate marketplace, and Keyper raises $6.5M for its real estate investment and management portal.

Why it’s interesting: The UAE is home to 55% of the proptech companies in the region, driven by robust residential demand in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Dubai expects to double its population to 6M by 2040, driving interest from both real estate investors and first time home buyers.

Top 10 Funding Rounds

1. Supply Chain and Logistics: 🇮🇳 Zetwerk, an Indian B2B marketplace and supply chain platform for manufacturing across multiple industries, has raised $120M in Series F funding led by Avenir Growth Capital, with participation from Lightspeed Ventures.

2. Spacetech: 🇸🇬 Qosmosys, a Singapore based lunar rocket manufacturer and mission operator for public and private companies, has raised $100M in Seed funding.

3. Cleantech: 🇺🇸 🇳🇬 🇮🇳 Husk Power Systems, a US, Nigeria, and India based renewable energy services company for weak-grid and off-grid communities in Africa and Asia, has raised $43M in Series D funding with participation from Shell Ventures.

4. Fintech: 🇮🇳 Neo, an Indian financial advisory platform enabling transactions and consolidated portfolio reporting for high and ultra high net worth individuals, has raised $35M led by Peak XV Partners.

5. Supply Chain and Logistics: 🇸🇬 Inteluck, a Singapore based end-to-end logistics platform for air and ocean freight, land transportation, warehousing, and logistics optimization, has raised $34M in Series C funding led by Navegar.

6. Horizontal SaaS: 🇮🇳 Fingerprint, an Indian real time device intelligence platform providing companies with a complete view of their users across web and mobile, has raised $33M in Series C funding led by Nexus Venture Partners.

7. Proptech: 🇮🇳 Vastu Housing Finance, an Indian digital home loan provider and platform, has raised $30M from Faering Capital.

8. Proptech: 🇦🇪 Nomad Homes, a UAE based marketplace for residential real estate in Europe and the Middle East, has raised $20M in Series A Extension funding led by Acrew Capital.

9. Mobility: 🇲🇽 Nexu, a Mexican financing platform for people looking to buy a car, has raised $20M led by Valor Capital, with participation from Fintech Collective and Clocktower Ventures.

10. Cleantech: 🇸🇬 Cosmos Innovation, a Singapore based company building AI driven solar cell factories, has raised $16.8M in Series A funding led by Xora Innovation (Temasek).

Over $552M+ raised this week from the likes of Lightspeed, Peak XV, Redpoint, Y Combinator and more.

Click the button below to get the full list of funding announcements.

Who’s Investing

🇮🇳 India’s Singularity marks the first close of its ~$180M Growth Opportunities Fund II, to invest in 14-16 startups in the country.

🇮🇩 Indonesia’s East Ventures has launched its first healthcare focused fund worth $30M to invest in healthtech startups in the country.

🇮🇩 Indonesia’s Kopital Ventures announced the first close of its maiden fund at $12M, to invest in 30-40 early stage startups across the region over the next 3 years.

🇨🇱 The Ganesha Lab, a Chile based globally focused biotech accelerator, has launched a $10M fund to invest in 25 pre-seed and seed healthtech, cleantech, and agtech startups.

🇹🇳 Tunisia’s Anava Fund of Funds has pledged $5M into Titan Seed Fund I, to invest in deep tech startups in the country.

🇪🇸 Spain’s IESE Business School is planning to deploy $4.54M to promote entrepreneurship in Latin America over the next 5 years.

🇮🇳 Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma has launched a $3.6M fund to invest in AI and EV startups in the country.

🇲🇽 Mexico’s Miranda Partners and AMG Block Ventures are partnering to launch a new venture fund to invest in growing Mexico based startups.

🇨🇴 🇸🇻 Colombia’s Cube Ventures and El Salvador’s Innogen are partnering to boost the startup ecosystem in Latin America, by helping them with finding funding and building an environment of learning.

🇸🇬 🇺🇸 PayPal has invested in two female focused funds - Singapore’s Sweef Capital’s Southeast Asia Women’s Economic Empowerment Fund, and US based emerging markets fund Quona Capital’s Quona Opportunity Fund.

Place of the Week

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

Thank you for reading 🙏 

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

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Best,

Gautam