Dealstreetasia raises first round of funding

DEALSTREETASIA, a Singapore-based digital media company that owns and publishes Asia-focused financial deals site dealstreetasia.com, has raised its first round of funding, the company announced on Tuesday.

Investors in this pre-Series A round include Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder-CEO of Paytm, one of India's largest mobile commerce platforms; Singapore Angel Network, the angel investment arm of lifestyle group Thakral Corporation; and Hindustan Times Media Group, which publishes business daily Mint in India and MintAsia in Singapore.

This investment - the amount of which is not disclosed - comes ahead of a "larger" Series A round of venture funding which the company said it plans to close in Q1 2016.

On the investment, Dealstreetasia founder and editor-in-chief Joji Thomas Philip said: "We plan to go to China next with outposts in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, and also to Japan and Australia, and become a pan-Asia player."

In 2016, the company will also launch Dealstreetasia Analytics, a "research, deal intelligence and origination" platform that will create and mine data to give deal engineers "cutting-edge information across Asian markets", Mr Philip added.