Startup Continent: The Most Well-Funded Tech Startups In Asia & The Pacific

Last year, investors poured more than $90B into nearly 5,800 deals to tech startups based in the Asia-Pacific region, which stretches from Pakistan to China to New Zealand.

This included massive $1B+ rounds to companies including China-based internet logistics company Manbang Group, Indonesia-based delivery platform Gojek, and India-based telecom giant Reliance Jio.

Using CB Insights data, we identified the most well-funded VC-backed tech startups in the region, based on disclosed equity funding. Collectively, the startups on our map have raised over $61.4B.

See the full infographic below and the complete list of startups at the end of this post.

Our analysis ranks companies based on total disclosed equity funding and only considers private tech companies that have raised at least $1M of equity funding. Companies included have all raised equity funding since 2016. To give a robust picture of the top tech startups in the region, we include Hong Kong and Taiwan separately from China.

Please click to enlarge.

key takeaways 

• The most well-funded startup across Asia and the Pacific is India-based Reliance Jio, with over $20B in total disclosed equity funding, the vast majority of which it raised in 2020. In fact, the telecom giant raised more in 2020 than all India-based tech startups combined raised in 2019.
• Reliance Jio is closely followed by China’s Ant Group, with $19.1B raised. These leaders far outpace the rest of the region, with more than double the funding of the next runner-up (Singapore-based Grab, with $9.2B in funding).
• 5 of the 19 companies featured in our map are unicorns valued at $1B+: Grab ($14.3B, Singapore), Gojek ($10B, Indonesia), Lalamove ($10B, Hong Kong), Coupang ($9B, South Korea), and Airwallex ($1.8B, Australia). Note: Ant Group and Reliance Jio do not meet our “unicorn” definition, due to their relationships with Alibaba and Jio Platforms, respectively. 
• The Asia-Pacific region is home to 19 countries or regions in which the most well-funded tech startup has raised at least $1M in funding. Of those, 6 companies have raised more than $1B.
• The company with the least amount of funding on our map is Sri Lanka-based telemedicine startup oDoc, which has raised $1.1M in seed funding.