On location

Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company, announced on Monday it plans to open an infrastructure region in Thailand. As part of its commitment to the region, AWS plans an estimated investment of more than $5 billion in Thailand over 15 years.

SixSense, a Singapore-based artificial intelligence (AI)-powered industrial visual inspection platform for smarter manufacturing, announced Tuesday it has secured its Series A funding of $2.6million. The round was led by Tin Men Capital, a Singapore-based venture capital firm focused on business to business (B2B) tech startups in South-East Asia.

Partipost, a Singapore-based crowd influencer marketing and commerce platform, announced Tuesday that it has secured an investment of over $7 million.The oversubscribed round is led by iGlobe Partners, with participation from Temasek’s Pavilion Capital, Taiwan Mobile, Cathay Venture, and Quest Ventures.

EVMOS StayKing House, a decentralized finance protocol developed by engineers from Sooho.io, the South Korea-based DeFi infrastructure service provider, won the Grand Champion award of $80,000 worth of USDC and EVMOS at Evmos’ inaugural Momentum Hackathon.

Asean saw a total of 96 IPOs raising $3.8 billion, up 4 percent in deal numbers and a decline of 57 percent in proceeds YOY. The notable decline in proceeds was due to a lack of mega IPOs (IPOs with proceeds equal to or greater than $1 billion) in YTD 2022.

The IPO plan follows the $1.1 billion IPO of GoTo Group, Indonesia's biggest tech firm, earlier this year and the 2021 $1.5 billion IPO of BukaLapak.

The Southeast Asian economy is forecasted to grow by 4 percent to 5 percent annually over the next 10 years, with Vietnam leading the charge at a projected growth of 5 percent to 7 percent, according to a joint report by Bain & Company and Monk’s Hill Ventures’ Angsana Council.

Mastercard and Grab, the Singapore-based super app, announced Tuesday the “Small Business, Big Dreams” regional program to digitally upskill gig economy workers and small businesses in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Founded in 2017, Kopi Kenangan expanded to more than 850 outlets in 64 cities in Indonesia and officially became the first Southeast Asia company to achieve 'unicorn' status in the F&B category in December last year.

As many regions around the world enter an adjustment period, startup founders and investors have to adjust to a slower fundraising pace. Still, some investors see the adjustment as a healthy thing since it produces more reasonable valuations, weeds out unproductive firms, and forces founders to focus on creating real value.