PitchBook News - Sizing up Southeast Asia's markets

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The Daily Pitch: VC

March 13, 2024

The Daily Pitch is powered by PitchBook’s industry-defining research and best-in-class data

In today's Daily Pitch, you'll find:

Our debut Southeast Asia Private Capital Breakdown looks at the region's economies

London still dominates private market activity in the UK, but smaller hubs are gaining traction

VC funding slackens for female-founded startups in the US

Which investors have been writing the most checks to early-stage European startups?

A new crop of companies are attracting VC interest by shaking up how insurance is offered

Today's Top Stories

Southeast Asia's fast-growing economies weather deal squeeze

Can Southeast Asia recover its dealmaking enthusiasm? Between 2015 and 2021, the cumulative deal count for PE and VC more than tripled, and deal value hit a high-water mark of $34.1 billion in 2022. Since then, however, activity in the region has been squeezed more than in other places.

PitchBook's debut 2024 Southeast Asia Private Capital Breakdown finds considerable opportunities remain among the region's fast-growing and diverse economies. Indonesia, the most populous country, has a bustling tech ecosystem and the largest domestic market. And some are already talking up Vietnam as the "next Indonesia."

read the report

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Challenges mount for UK markets

The UK closed out 2023 in a recession following a tough year for both the public and private markets. At the end of 2023, the FTSE 100 was underperforming all other key indexes in Europe and valuations came in under those seen at the start of the year, according to our Q4 2023 UK Market Snapshot.

VC deal count declined for three consecutive quarters, registering its lowest figure in over five years in Q4. The PE market fared better: The number of investments remained relatively stable throughout 2023 and deal value recovered in the latter half of the year. London still dominates private market activity in the UK, but smaller hubs like Cambridge and Edinburgh have seen significant growth over the past decade.

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Funding for female founders off to a slow start in 2024

US VC deals for female founders were muted in the first two months of the year, marking a six-year low for the period, according to our female founders dashboard.

Startups with at least one female founder garnered $3.2 billion over 420 deals in the first two months of the new year.

Notable deals in February included a $170 million Series D for anti-aging drug developer BioAge, co-founded by CEO Kristen Fortney, and a $40 million Series A for content creation platform developer Passes, founded by CEO Lucy Guo.

explore the dashboard

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Meet the 10 busiest dealmakers for Europe's early-stage startups

London (Ezra Bailey/Getty Images)

Despite increased pressure from the ongoing VC downturn, European early-stage dealmaking has been comparatively resilient in recent years, with even some sizeable deals closing.

The majority of early-stage rounds are still predominantly led by European investors, but many of the larger rounds feature VC firms from overseas, particularly the US. We've put together a ranking of the 10 most active investors in the space since 2018.

see the list

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Investors eye nontraditional providers as insurtech's future

VC investors have poured nearly $30 billion over the past three years into the insurtech startups challenging established business models.

A new crop of companies, those developing embedded insurance, are attracting investor attention—and their capital, PitchBook's Robert Le writes in our recent analyst note. Embedded insurance is a model where coverage is offered and managed by nontraditional providers and, typically, distributed via retail platforms like Amazon or American Airlines.

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Since yesterday, the PitchBook Platform added:

13

VC valuations

2254

People

662

Companies

43

Funds

See what our data software can do

The Daily Benchmark: 2019 Vintage Global VC Funds with more than $250M

Median IRR

14.56%

Top Quartile IRR

23.29%

0.00x

Median DPI

Select top performers

Craft Ventures II

XVC Fund II

Eclipse Early-Stage Fund III

*IRR: net of fees

31 Funds in Benchmark »

Check out the latest version of PitchBook Benchmarks

VC Deals

Autonomous vehicle software provider Applied Intuition secured a $250 million Series E led by Lux Capital. The round values the California-based company at $6 billion.

New York-based crypto company Monad Labs is seeking to raise $200 million at a $3 billion valuation in a round led by Paradigm, Fortune reported.

Los Angeles-based beverage-maker Liquid Death was valued at $1.4 billion after raising $67 million from investors including SuRo Capital, Live Nation and Science.

CarbonCapture, a direct air capture startup based in Los Angeles, raised an $80 million Series A led by Prime Movers Lab.

Bear Robotics, a Silicon Valley-based provider of AI-driven autonomous service robots, raised $60 million from LG Electronics.

Eclipse Labs, a San Francisco-based company developing ethereum Layer-2 infrastructure, raised a $50 million Series A led by Placeholder and Hack VC.

New York-based Empathy, which provides benefits to grieving employees, raised a $47 million Series B led by Index Ventures.

CodaMetrix, which uses AI to automate medical coding, raised a $40 million Series B led by Transformation Capital.

South African space-tech company Simera Sense raised a €13.5 million growth investment from NewSpace Capital and Knife Capital.

Germany's Steadybit secured a $6 million Series A led by Paladin Capital Group for its software reliability platform.

Don't miss our upcoming webinar

Women in VC have historically had a more difficult time securing funding than their male counterparts, but even as pressures from investors rose, female founders fared relatively well in 2023.

In this webinar, four notable women will discuss how female founders and investors are navigating ongoing volatility in the US venture market, what wins we saw in 2023, and where we still see opportunities for growth. Key topics include:

The changing pace of funding received by female-founded companies.

Valuation trends across company life stages and deal activity in key sectors.

A gender breakdown of check writers and a look at the community building initiatives for a more diverse population of entrepreneurs.

Register now to secure your spot.

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PE Deals

Apollo Global Management and a rival group including KKR and RedBird Capital Partners are separately evaluating a takeover of entertainment giant Paramount Global, Axios reported.

Arsenal Capital Partners purchased the enabling services and patient access businesses of contract research firm Fortrea Holdings for up to $345 million.

KPS Capital Partners is competing with Nidec to acquire Siemens' Innomotics large motors business in a deal that could reach €3 billion, Bloomberg reported.

Chicago's Linden Capital Partners acquired Alcresta Therapeutics, a biotech company developing products for patients living with gastrointestinal disorders, from Athyrium Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Frazier Healthcare Partners and HealthQuest Capital.

HIG Capital-backed Aspire Pharma acquired Cenoté Pharma, a UK-based pharmaceutical company specializing in carnitine deficiencies.

Alto Partners and EOS Investment Management acquired a majority stake in Italian design specialist EF Group.

Exits & IPOs

Astorg is mulling a sale of intellectual property software specialist Anaqua for as much as $3 billion, Reuters reported.

Partners Group and Kedaara Capital are seeking to sell their majority stake in Vishal Mega Mart in a $1 billion IPO, Reuters reported. The India-based groceries retailer is targeting a valuation of up to $5 billion, according to the report.

Buyout firm Hg is looking to sell Trackunit, a Denmark-based telematics specialist, for $1 billion, Bloomberg reported.

Fast fashion retailer In The Style has entered into a nonbinding agreement to be acquired by London-listed Iconic Labs in a reverse takeover.

Healthcare data company Tempus hired Morgan Stanley for its upcoming IPO, which could launch in the next few months, The Information reported. Tempus' backers include Franklin Venture Partners, T. Rowe Price and Baillie Gifford.

Fundraising

European middle-market PE firm Inflexion has closed Inflexion Partnership Capital Fund III on its £1.75 billion hard cap.

Texas-based Gauge Capital has closed its fourth fund on approximately $1.4 billion.

GoldenTree Asset Management has raised more than $1.35 billion for its first pure private credit fund, Reuters reported.

New York-based 4x4 Capital has raised $244.5 million for its third fund, according to an SEC filing.

Investors

Thomson Reuters has $8 billion in dry powder for potential AI investments and acquisitions, CEO Steve Hasker told the Financial Times.

Chart of the Day

Source: H2 2023 MENA Private Capital Breakdown

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PitchBook News - Sizing up Southeast Asia's markets

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