SINGAPORE attracted a total of US$685 million in tech investments for the second quarter of 2023, bringing the city-state’s total H1 gains to US$1.2 billion.

This makes it the most-funded city in South-east Asia over both quarterly and half-year periods, said data intelligence platform Tracxn in a report released on Thursday (Jul 13).

The city-state’s top position bucks regional trends.

Total funding into South-east Asian startups fell 71 per cent to US$2.3 billion in H1 2023, from US$8 billion in H1 2022.

East Ventures, Seeds Capital and Y Combinator were the most active investors in the region’s space in H1 2023.

Only six funding rounds exceeding US$100 million took place in the period, down 69 per cent from 18 of such funding rounds in H1 2022.

A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU

Friday, 8.30 am

Asean Business

Business insights centering on South-east Asia's fast-growing economies.

Sign Up

Acquisitions for the period totalled 29, representing a 58 per cent decline from 69 acquisitions in the same period the year before. 

Noting that the latest half-year period was the least funded since 2020, Tracxn observed that South-east Asia’s funding has been on a steady decline after its peak in 2021.

Investments in the region fell by 39 per cent in 2022 from the previous year’s levels.

This was potentially due to rising interest rates and the current macroeconomic environment, it said.

While fintech, enterprise applications and retail were the top-performing sectors in the tech funding space over H1 2023, their results were still on the downtrend compared to H2 2022. Autotech and insurtech, however, grew over the latest half-year period, driven by funds raised by e-commerce platform Carsome as well as insurance exchange platform Bolttech.

“The insurance sector has been relatively less affected by the global headwinds in major economies of South-east Asia, mainly Singapore, due to proper underwriting and growing premiums for compulsory fire insurance,” noted Tracxn.

“This, combined with growing penetration of fintech products and online offerings, will help (the insurance) sector to thrive in the coming days.”

Following Singapore are Jakarta and Petaling Jaya as the region’s top-funded cities in H1. Jakarta attracted investments of US$378 million, and Petaling Jaya US$202 million.

Temasek-backed Indonesian aquatech startup eFishery was the only South-east Asian company to attain unicorn status over the period, as opposed to two unicorns formed over H2 2022.