Ask any founder in Asia which country they plan to visit to raise funding, and chances are that diminutive Singapore will come up tops. And it won’t be too surprising – when it comes to startups, its government is probably one of the most supportive in the world. Plus, there are many VC firms and private investors – including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin – who have chosen to call the island-state their home.
With so much money going into the local tech scene, one wonders which Singapore-based tech firms are the grand winners in the race to get funded. To quench your curiosity, we’ve done the heavy lifting and identified the top 10 most well-funded internet companies in Singapore.
Note: all figures shown below are of public funding rounds, and do not include undisclosed amounts.
1. Lazada, US$686 million (Techlist profile)
The fashion ecommerce retailer is one of Rocket Internet’s greatest successes so far, and is the only unicorn on this list with a valuation of US$1.25 billion. Thanks to its recent shift to a marketplace model for third-party merchants, Lazada’s sales – or gross merchandise volume (GMV) – doubled in the second half of 2014 as compared to the former half, bringing its total GMV for that year to roughly US$274.2 million.
2. Zalora, US$238 million (Techlist profile)
The other Rocket Internet-backed startup on the list, Zalora’s last-seen numbers aren’t exactly rosy. According to leaked documents, it had a net negative income of US$91 million in 2012, expecting to reach profitability by 2015. Whether or not it will actually do so this year remains to be seen, but regardless, the company has certainly won the confidence of several investors who have seen fit to invest substantial amounts.
While there was speculation that Zalora might go public in 2014, its recent plans to merge with four other fashion brands under Rocket Internet’s umbrella to form the Global Fashion Group say otherwise. Rocket Internet, however, did launch an US$8.2 billion initial public offering, which means Zalora might be seeing more capital flowing into its coffers soon.
3. iCarsClub, US$70.5 million (Techlist profile)
A peer-to-peer car rental platform is a great idea in Singapore, given the high costs of car ownership here. Nailing the execution, however, is a whole different ballgame, and iCarsClub has received some negative publicity in 2014 regarding just that. Still, having a war chest at its disposal will certainly help if it is directed in the right direction. iCarsClub and its Beijing-based spinoff PPzuche now have over 120,000 private cars available in their databases.
4. PropertyGuru, US$53 million (Techlist profile)
Online property classifieds are a hotly-contested industry in Southeast Asia, but somehow PropertyGuru have managed to stay ahead of the pack. In Singapore, 99.co is the latest challenger. According to the former’s calculations, however, PropertyGuru has managed to achieve 87 percent market share in Singapore in terms of the total time people spend on the site. Data from Alexa and SimilarWeb also place PropertyGuru ahead of other big players, such as iProperty and STProperty.
CEO Steve Melhuish had revealed a couple of years ago that the company might go public, but nothing has happened since then. 2015 might be the year PropertyGuru joins the small but growing list of Singaporean success stories.
5. Reebonz, US$40 million (Techlist profile)
Besides the Rocket Internet companies listed above, Reebonz is probably the next most well-known name locally when it comes to ecommerce stores. It takes a different tack from the rest with its focus on luxury goods, and last year bought over a similar website called Clout Shoppe from SingPost to boost its reach.
In August 2014, there was speculation that Reebonz – together with gaming hardware giant Razer – might be going public, with reports that the ecommerce startup was looking for investors. There have, however, been no updates on the matter since.
6. Bubbly, US$39 million (Techlist profile)
The earlier half of 2014 are days that the team at Bubbly would probably want to forget. During that period, the social networking startup received multiple offers for acquisition, and in the process laid off its management team and restructured the company for a deal that turned sour and fell through.
While CEO Thomas Clayton had initially made up his mind to liquidate the company, a few weeks later it was acquired for an undisclosed amount by India-based Altruist, a mobile social networking services provider that has its presence in several markets across Europe, Africa, and Asia.
7. MyRepublic, US$37.5 million (Techlist profile)
MyRepublic probably has the most ambitious goal on this list: to become Singapore’s fourth telco. But it’s not content to become just another local player – it also recently went to New Zealand with a free three month trial offer of a 100Mbps ultra-fast fibre broadband.
Last we heard, the telco startup signs up about 2,000 new customers a month, and was on pace to triple annual revenue in 2014 to US$15 million. 2015 will probably see it push further into the rest of Asia.
8. Migme, US$34.6 million (Techlist profile)
The social entertainment platform had an extremely eventful 2014. Since listing on the ASX in August, it has gone on to make a couple of key acquisitions – couple chat app LoveByte and penny auction startup Sold.sg – and one investment. In December, Migme had surpassed 9 million MAUs.
Ultimately, its vision is to create a “playful social ecommerce experience” for its users, with Chinese C2C marketplace Taobao as CEO Steven Goh’s inspiration.
9. Wego, US$34.5 million (Techlist profile)
From the left: Wego co-founders Craig Hewett and Ross Veitch
In 2013, the travel metasearch company claimed to be processing over $10 million in potential bookings every day, with a presence in 52 countries. It launched its iOS and Android app in mid-2014, which climbed to the number one spot in Indonesia’s iOS app store.
10. Viki, US$24.3 million (Techlist profile)
If you’re a Singaporean and haven’t heard of this particular crowdsourced video subtitling website, you must have been living under a rock. Viki was the star in the largest acquisition ever made for a Singapore-based startup in 2013, when it was bought by Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten for US$200 million.
A year later, the company reported that it has 35 million monthly active users (MAUs) and 25 million mobile users, up from 22 million MAUs with 10 million on mobile at the time of acquisition.
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