Emerging Markets Roundup: May 24 - May 30 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 focus on sectors I believe have the most potential to produce breakout companies from these geographies.

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.

To my Readers:

I’ve spent years immersed in these startup ecosystems as a founder and VC, and I want to make this as useful as possible to you.

This is V1 - to start with, I’m curating funding rounds and VCs focused on these regions.

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.

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

Opportunities

Small businesses across the world remain woefully underserved by tech companies (despite Shopify, Facebook, and Amazon’s products). In the informal sector that dominates much of emerging market economies, that problem is further compounded.

I can see opportunities in building solutions for small businesses in this sector using tools they already know how to use.

Case in point - Vatrin (mentioned in today’s funding rounds) is a Palestinian platform allowing small businesses to set up and manage online stores using just Whatsapp.

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

🇮🇳 Balwaan, an Indian online seller of agricultural tools enabling farm mechanization, has raised $2M in Pre Series A funding led by Caspian Leap for Agriculture Fund.

🇮🇳 KisanKonnect, an Indian omnichannel platform sourcing food directly from farmers and delivering them to consumers, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from actress Shilpa Shetty Kundra.

B2B Marketplaces

🇮🇩 Evermos, an Indonesian reseller network focusing on Shariah-compliant products, has raised $39M in Series C funding led by IFC and IFC Emerging Asia Fund.

🇵🇸 Vatrin, a Palestinian platform allowing small businesses to set up and manage their online store using Whatsapp, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Ibtikar Fund.

Cleantech

🇻🇳 Stride, a Vietnamese cleantech company providing homes and businesses with energy saving, eco-friendly products and solutions and financing, has raised $2M in Seed funding led by Clime Capital and Touchstone Partners.

E-Commerce and E-Commerce Enablement

🇮🇳 Purplle, an Indian beauty and cosmetics e-commerce unicorn, has raised $50-$60M in funding from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).

🇲🇦 PrestaFreedom, a Moroccan home services marketplace, has raised $1.1M from Azur Innovation Fund.

Edtech

🇮🇳 Ulipsu, an Indian edtech platform for teaching skills for young ones between 6 and 16, has raised $3.2M in Pre-Series A funding from existing investors and angels in the Middle East and Canada.

🇮🇳 UFaber, an Indian personalized learning platform, has raised ~$3M in Series A funding from Mastermind JPIN Capital Partners Fund and Gray Matters Capital.

🇿🇦 Play Sense, a South African play based learning platform allowing teachers to set up their own playschools, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Grindstone Ventures.

Fintech

🇮🇳 XFlow, an Indian fintech company building infrastructure for international business payments, has raised $10.2M in Pre Series A funding led by Square Peg with participation from Lightspeed and General Catalyst.

🇮🇳 An Indian stealth wealthtech led by the former CTO of Swiggy has raised $7-$10M in funding from Accel and Elevation Capital.

🇮🇩 SkorLife, an Indonesian fintech company allowing users to access their credit scores and reports from credit bureaus, has raised $4M in Seed funding led by Hummingbird Ventures with participation from QED Investors.

🇺🇬 Zofi Cash, a Ugandan earned wage access platform, has raised a $1M debt facility from Advancly.

🇲🇽 Kapital, a Mexican fintech helping small businesses with financial services such as cash flow management, credit and investments, has raised $20M in Series A funding led by Niya Partners and Tribe Capital.

🇸🇻 Cubo, a Salvadoran fintech helping small businesses in Central America digitize payments, has raised $3.5M in Seed funding led by BID Lab.

Healthtech

🇸🇬 Amili, a Singaporean gut microbiome sequencing company for Asians, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from East Ventures.

🇲🇦 DataPathology, a Moroccan healthtech using AI to provide accurate, quick pathological diagnoses for patient care, has raised $1M from Azur Innovation Fund.

🇦🇪 Lifemost, a UAE-based healthtech providing mental wellness programs to corporates, has raised $650K in Pre-Seed funding from angels.

🇲🇽 Huli, a Mexican healthtech firm building SaaS applications for healthcare professionals, hospital networks, and insurance companies, has raised $5.5M in Pre-Series A funding.

Supply Chain and Logistics

🇦🇪 Cargoz, a UAE based logistics platform connecting small businesses with unutilized warehouse space, has raised an undisclosed amount of bridge round funding from Nama Ventures and angels.

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.

Business Automation

🇸🇬 Zuzu Hospitality, a Singaporean platform for independent hotels that helps them with revenue management, distribution, payments, and operations has raised $9M in Series B funding led by SoftBank Ventures Asia.

🇹🇷 Insider, a Turkish marketing platform to deliver individualized cross-channel customer experiences, has raised $105M from existing investors including Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).

Creator Economy

🇸🇬 Bandlab, a Singaporean platform allowing music creators anywhere in the world to create, collaborate and share their music, has raised $25M in Series B1 financing from Paul Allen’s VC.

Software and Data Infrastructure

🇧🇷 deX, a Brazilian cloud infrastructure services platform for streamlining, transforming and analyzing data, has raised a Pre-Seed round led by Equitas VC.

Web3

🇮🇳 Transak, an Indian developer integration toolkit to let users buy/sell crypto in any app, website or web plugin, has raised $20M in Series A funding led by CE Innovation Capital.

🇸🇬 GoodGang Labs, a Singaporean company bringing people together through metaverse avatars, has raised $2M in Seed funding led by Kakao Investment.

Who’s Investing

🇮🇳 Aeravti Ventures, an Indian early-stage VC investing in deeptech, life sciences, agtech, climate and enterprise, has raised its first $12M fund.

🇺🇸 🇮🇳 Tribe Capital, a Silicon Valley based VC firm has plans to launch a $250M India-focused fund.

🇸🇬 Antler, a Singaporean VC and accelerator, is setting aside $100M for investments in SE Asia, with 40% reserved for Indonesia.

🇸🇬 🇹🇭 Trirec, a Singaporean VC, has partnered with Innopower, a Thai energy company, to launch Energy Ignition Ventures, a $100M fund focused on decarbonization.

🇸🇦 🇺🇸 Saudi Venture Capital (SVC), has allocated $7.5M to Endeavor Catalyst, as part of a broader plan to invest $1.6B into startups in the country.

🇨🇱 Manutara Ventures, a Chilean VC, has launched a $28M fund to invest in Pre-Series A and Series A rounds in Chile and Latin America.

🇸🇻 Innogen Capital, a Salvadoran VC, has launched a $10M fund for Central American startups in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, focusing on financial inclusion, healthtech, education, real estate, and agriculture.

Shoutout

🇳🇬 Lemonade Finance, a Nigerian fintech building a digital bank for the African diaspora that I syndicated investment for, has rebranded to LemFi.

Place of the Week

There’s a whole world out there to explore. Today’s place of the week is in El Salvador, honoring the country’s first mention in the newsletter.

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.

If you liked this email, I highlight my take on these markets on my Twitter account as well.

Best,

Gautam