3 October 2019
The SEA Internet economy report 2019: Southeast Asia’s $100 billion Internet economy
The SEA Internet economy report 2019: Southeast Asia’s $100 billion Internet economy was released today. This is the fourth report by Google and Temasek and with Bain coming on as a research contributor this year, focusing on the area of digital financial services in SEA as well. The report shows that the funding levels in SEA is growing steadily despite an uncertain macro economic environment. Early stage funding levels (Series A and B) which used to be the “Valley of Death” which is used to describe the dearth of early stage investments has now grown to healthy levels. However, the funding crunch has moved to later stage funding (Series C and D average deal size of $25-100M). We are seeing that the lack of deals at Series C and D levels is an obstacle in the growth of aspiring unicorns (companies valued $100M to 1B). Rohit Sipahimalani, Temasek’s Joint Head, Investment Group and Portfolio Strategy & Risk Group talks us through the implications of the findings.

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