Southeast Asian venture capital firms expect to be pickier in 2023 than in 2022
Venture capital firms in Southeast Asia will probably be pickier next year, with valuations plunging and macro headwinds slowing down growth in 2022.
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Venture capital firms in Southeast Asia will probably be pickier next year, with valuations plunging and economic headwinds slowing growth in 2022.
“The era of easy money is already history,” said Yinglan Tan, CEO and founding managing partner at Singapore-based Insignia Ventures Partners.
“The biggest thing to watch out next year, is how companies are going to grow, defend their valuation and survive the challenging environment,” said Jefrey Joe, co-founder and managing partner at Indonesia-based Alpha JWC Ventures.
According to data firm Crunchbase, venture capital-backed companies raised only $369 billion for the first three quarters of 2022, a far cry from the whole of last year’s record-breaking feat of $679.4 billion invested globally — which was a 98% increase from the year before that.
“We have observed Southeast Asian VC deployment contract by 25-30% this year, relatively more so in Indonesia and at the Series B+ stage, and less so at the seed and Series A stages,” said Gavin Teo, general partner at Altara Ventures.
But there is still a lot of dry powder, according to venture capitalists who spoke to CNBC.
“Most funds have capital to deploy, but they are looking for great investment opportunities,” said Jussi Salovaara, co-founder and managing partner of Asia at Antler.
