Investor interest in the nascent deep-tech space — or companies creating a tough-to-replicate, complex, and scientific solution for a problem — is slowly picking up in South and SE Asia.
While the deep-tech sector enjoys favourable government policies, particularly in Singapore, the challenge remains in the addressable market size in the region.
“If you look at new, highly innovative models, they need to go outside India, and Southeast Asia to the developed countries,” said India-based Inflexor Ventures’ Venkat Vallabhaneni, speaking during a panel discussion – The evolving deep-tech landscape in South and SE Asia: Challenges and Opportunities – at the Asia PE-VC Summit 2021.
Investors are also seeing a gap in the lab-to-market journey in South and Southeast Asia.
Said Kiran Mysore, principal at the University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners, “The US has been doing it well and it’s easy to take the IP [intellectual property] out of the university and spin it into a company. But this is not the case in South Asia,” said Mysore. “Both India and Singapore are improving in this aspect, but it is still not standardised.”
Inflexor Ventures closed its technology fund at $81 million to back B2B/enterprise startups leveraging deep-tech, technology IP, and innovation. It has backed Steradian Semiconductors, AR-based edtech firm PlayShifu, Vitra.ai, and Kale Logistics.
And, UTEC hit the first close of its fifth global deep-tech fund at $275 million and is targeting to invest more heavily in Southeast Asia. So far, it has invested in Singapore-based deep tech firms like SWAT Mobility, Immunoscape, OPALai and Tricog. Its portfolio in India includes Bugworks Research and the firm is also an LP in Blume Ventures Fund III.
Watch the video to know more about the deep-tech landscape in the region.