Dreams rise beyond the concrete jungles

Citymall, BrainCo, Gravity Labs, and more raised funds this week.

Read from your browser FOMO Saturday Welcome to Tech in Asia's free Saturday VC newsletter! Get full access to our subscribers-only premium content and other insightful analysis on the big and messy topics of Asia's tech and startup community by registering here. Hello Betamax, When we think of the hottest trends in ecommerce, the first images that come to mind are skyscrapers and city lights. The sector is so much more than that, though. In fact, in India, non-metro cities are now leading in orders on ecommerce platforms. The company dominating this week's list of top deals backs this up. CityMall, which services mainly non-metro consumers in the country, is living proof that ecommerce is too big to be put in a box. You can find all other important investment deals that happened in the last few days in our weekly funding news wrap-up. Let's dive into the biggest deals and M&As that recently took place. -- Winston The biggest deals by country 🇮🇳 CityMall, a community ecommerce startup focused on non-metro consumers in India, has raised US$47 million in a funding round led by Accel. Other participants in the round - which combined US$41 million in equity, with the rest as debt - were existing investors including Waterbridge Ventures, Citius, General Catalyst, Elevation Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Jungle Ventures. 🇨🇳 BrainCo, a Chinese AI company, has secured US$30 million from Dowstone. 🇰🇷 South Korean firm Gravity Labs, which operates global digital healthcare app Moneywork, has received US$12.6 million in series A funding. Participating investors included Schmidt, Goodwater Capital, and Seoul Techno Holdings. 🇸🇦 Headquartered in Saudi Arabia, Intella is a speech intelligence company focused on Arabic dialects. It has scored US$12.5 million in a series A round led by Prosus, with participation from 500 Global, Wa'ed Ventures, Hala Ventures, Idrisi Ventures, and HearstLab. 🇦🇪 WheelsOn, a digital car rental platform based in the United Arab Emirates, has raised US$12.5 million in a new funding round to expand its fleet and enhance its tech. The company secured US$2.2 million in equity from private investors focusing on the Middle East and North Africa, US$6.5 million for fleet expansion, and US$4 million in local bank financing. Here's the complete list of this week's funding chart: 73 deals worth over US$305 million. M&As 🇰🇷 South Korean fintech company Wallet One has been acquired by Hecto Innovation, which provides personal information security services, for an undisclosed sum. 🇮🇳 Dusminute, an Indian retail chain, has been purchased by Star Localmart, another retail chain, for an undisclosed amount. Startups that are raising funds Fundraising is hard. To make things slightly easier, we've compiled this list of fundraising startups for our subscribers. Do you run a startup that's raising at the moment or know someone who does? Sign your company up for listing here. 🇸🇬 This Singapore startup specializes in AI-powered in-context video generation. 🇮🇩 This Indonesian firm is automating high-volume, manual, repetitive processes at scale through WhatsApp, voice, and video AI agents. 🇺🇸 This United States-based startup offers an on-device AI assistant designed for AI PCs. You can find the full list of fundraising startups in Asia over here. BEHIND THE GLASSWALL Fundraising often involves reaching out to several contacts, many of whom founders might not have dealt with before. To provide some transparency to this process, we created Glasswall, a platform for founders to give feedback and recommendations on investors. Check out the full list here. ✅︎ "Very straightforward to talk to; clearly share what they like and what worries them about the business model, open about where they can help and where they won't be able to." - Read more ❌ "We had shared our materials with the team and [they] did not respect our confidentiality and shared with unauthorized individuals." - Read more ✅︎ "They're highly data-driven VC. They reached out because they recognized our strong performance via their tracking platform. We were surprised, took the call, but decided not to take external funding. They were respectful of our decision." - Read more List of the most active investors in the region China | India | Indonesia | Japan | Singapore | Southeast Asia List of top-funded startups in Asia China | India | Indonesia | Israel | Japan | Hong Kong | Singapore | South Korea | Vietnam Thoughtful Tidbits 1️⃣ AI x nuclear power Powering AI takes a lot of energy and resources, so why not go the nuclear route? Fusion energy offers a renewable energy source that doesn't produce radioactive waste. That's what companies like Nvidia and Morgan Stanley are betting on, joining a US$863 million investment into one of the sector's leaders, Commonwealth Fusion Systems. 2️⃣ Doing before learning Apparently, if you're a product manager, you can learn about a brand new industry just by building your product. At least, that's what worked for Color co-founder and CEO Othman Laraki. Read about his journey and the advice he has for those who wish to follow in his footsteps on First Round Review. 3️⃣ Going beyond the AI sandbox Experimenting with the tech just for the sake of doing so - and not connecting your efforts to actual problems that need solutions - can be a waste of time and resources. Wondering how you can avoid this trap? Learn how to do AI right from this Harvard Business Review article. 4️⃣ Seeing the big picture with vibe coding AI coding tools have opened the field to so many more people. In this blog post, Tomasz Tunguz, general partner at Theory Ventures, offers tips on how to think about this new era of software development. 5️⃣ Round and round we go This podcast episode on the Andreessen Horowitz website dives into navigating the high and low cycles of the crypto industry. Interestingly, some of the insights it offers also apply to the greater tech world. Today's edition was written by Winston Zhang. It's edited by Mina Deocareza. EVENTS HAPPENING You can also check out a curated list of trending tech events over here and Tech in Asia's signature events here. Final seats left at AMPED 2025 Vietnam | September 10 AMPED 2025 Vietnam kicks off in just a few days, and only a few seats remain. In this four-hour event, founders will gain actionable insights, form high-impact collaborations, and build relationships that can accelerate fundraising and growth. The event is almost at capacity! Register for the waitlist to get your chance to attend. Tech in Asia Conference 2025 | Oct 22–23 – Jakarta While others cut back, companies like Telkomsel, Vivere, and Ray White Indonesia are investing in growth. Over 50% of tickets are already gone! Grab your 5th release pass now with up to 50% off. Connection Hub at TIA Conference | Oct 22–23 – Jakarta Stop networking. Start dealmaking. Stop networking. Start dealmaking. Connect with top VCs, corporates, and experts in curated 1:1 sessions at Tech in Asia Conference, powered by HUB.ID Komdigi. Each meeting is pre-scheduled to ensure relevance and high-impact results. Slots are extremely limited - apply now to secure your session and fuel your startup's growth here ADVERTISE | SUBSCRIBE | HIRE | FIND JOBS P.S. Don't miss out on the biggest tech news and analysis. Add newsletter@techinasia.com to your address book, contacts, or safe sender list. Or simply move us into your inbox. Tech in Asia thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. 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