🏆 Early-stage bust: Southeast Asia’s tech sector raised about $5.2bn in 2025, up 7% year on year. But seed funding collapsed by nearly 60%, and early-stage funding fell 64%. Late-stage funding, by contrast, surged to $3.9bn, nearly tripling.
🚀 Launching yes, scaling no: The region is excellent at launching startups, but struggles to scale them. Most ventures get stuck at pre-Series or seed stage. Only nine mega-deals above $100m, down from 16 in 2023.
đź›’Â Proven models dominate: E-commerce and fintech remain the largest verticals. Diversification is increasing, but much of it adapts Western business models rather than creating new categories.
🇸🇬 Singapore takes it all: Singapore-based firms captured 91% of all tech funding in the region. Jakarta follows far behind with just 4%. The “One SEA” concept doesn’t fully work for early-stage startups.
📉 A maturing phase: IPO and M&A activity is picking up, but remains below previous peaks. Investors are prioritizing profitability, cash flows, and clear market leadership.
Background
Under the “One Southeast Asia” narrative, the region markets itself as a single consumer market of 680 million people. In reality, it is highly fragmented: ten countries, ten regulatory regimes, languages, payment systems, and infrastructures.
Successful tech companies must balance local market logic with regional ambitions — a trade-off that makes scaling expensive. At the same time, a growing share of capital is flowing through family offices and corporate VCs outside traditional VC trackers, reducing transparency and tilting access to growth capital toward established networks.
The result: Southeast Asia produces many startups — but only a handful of true regional champions.
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