【A Feeding Frenzy for SEA Unicorns】
The SEA startup ecosystem has come a long way. Not even 9 years ago, companies like Grab, Go-Jek, Traveloka, Bukalapak, and Lazada were but mere budding seedlings, scooping up whatever sources of funding available to build a product that people want and love to use.
Fast forward to 2019, the very same companies are now billion dollar unicorns and firmly entrench as a funding source for other startups, as well as an exit channel for early-stage investors.
66 startups were acquired in 2018; that number is expected to reach upwards of 200 by the end of 2019, likely driven by the huge surge in M&A activity driven by the region's unicorns.
As many of these companies scale, so do their ambitions. It's often much faster and cheaper to enter a new vertical through acquisition rather than in-house development (granted the right opportunity comes along). Go-Jek, for example, has been expanding aggressively, scooping up companies like MVCommerce for payments, Loket for ticketing, Promogo for adtech, and AirCTO for engineering--all in an effort to further bolster their horizontal suite of services and in turn their value-add to consumers.
SEA is now entering its next phase of development, where local champions are the ones driving the boundaries of innovation now. Best part is, the next wave of success stories are likely already in the making.
AppWorks Accelerator's next AI/blockchain only batch (AW#19) is accepting applications until July 15. Apply today and join the strongest founder community in Greater Southeast Asia (TW+ASEAN) >>> http://bit.ly/2NDpPbc
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