The many paths to an exit

Origincell, Lunit, GobbleCube, and more raised funds this week.

Read from your browser FOMO Saturday Welcome to Tech in Asia's free Saturday VC newsletter! Register to 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. Ensure our articles appear in your Google searches: Hello Betamax, Good news: After a long spell, the amount of funding raised by startups this week crossed the US$1 billion mark. However, it's worth noting that this number is thanks to one deal in particular: the acquisition of DustPhotonics, a fabless semiconductor manufacturer, by chip company Credo for a whopping US$750 million. For me, this deal is a reminder that there are many paths to an exit, especially in the current business climate. Sure, we may not be seeing blockbuster IPOs and bell-ringing ceremonies, but these successful M&As are also indicators that a company has made a real impact - it's built something that people want to pay for, and that's great as well. 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. -- Stefanie THE BIGGEST DEALS BY MARKET 🇨🇳 Origincell is a biomedical startup focused on storage for biological samples. Based in China, it raised US$110 million in late-stage funding from Beijing Medical And Health Industry Investment Fund, Etown Capital, Lucion Venture Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, and Vivo Capital. 🇰🇷 Lunit is a Korean medical AI software company specializing in cancer screening and treatment It bagged US$21 million in series D money from Atinum Investment. 🇮🇳 GobbleCube is an AI-based revenue platform for brands. The Indian company raised US$15 million in series A funding from InfoEdge Ventures, Kae Capital, and Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital. 🇦🇺 Australia-based Haast uses AI to automate manual compliance workflows. Its series A round bagged US$12 million from Aura Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, DST Global Partner, and Peak XV Partners. 🇮🇩 Baskit, an Indonesian supply chain startup focused on offline trade, scored US$4.4 million in series A funding from Analog Ventures, Cento Ventures, Kaya Founders, and Orvel Ventures. Here's the complete list of this week's funding chart: 47 deals worth over US$1 billion. M&AS 🇮🇱 Israel's DustPhotonics, a fabless semiconductor firm that makes silicon photonics chips for optical transceivers, has been acquired by connectivity chip company Credo for US$750 million. 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 startup from Singapore is building verification-first legal AI for disputes and arbitration teams. 🇻🇳 Hailing from Vietnam, this startup uses machine language and AI to power quality predictive analytics to help process manufacturers optimize productivity. 🇮🇳 This Indian startup is building advanced genomics technology that delivers accurate personalized clinical decisions. 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. ✅︎ "Their branding in the industry and connections to relevant parties, for us, are quite strong in the ecosystem, so that helps with connections and optics for business and future rounds." - Read more ❌"The partner asked relevant questions, but her lack of familiarity with our vertical was apparent. She focused on hypothetical scenarios about competitors which, while interesting, felt unproductive after repetition." - Read more. ✅︎ "Professional, no nonsense, methodical, expert legal due diligence, fair and practical." - Read more DON'T LET AGENTIC AI BECOME A WHITE ELEPHANT In partnership with Agentic AI can be difficult to tackle, especially if you're looking to implement it in your organization. According to Sai Kolluri, CTO of Google Cloud Indonesia, it often boils down to three main challenges: A gap in trust and governance Legacy infrastructure inertia A disparity in workforce skills With this in mind, companies need to ensure that they've always got a human in the loop to oversee workflows, as well as to modernize their data pipelines with careful implementation. Organizing internal initiatives to encourage learning and adoption of AI tools can also be helpful. Click here to see how Google Cloud helps firms on their agentic AI journey. EXCLUSIVE LISTICLES Lists of 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 READS 1️⃣ The state of VC in 2026 Q1 2026 was an all-time quarterly high for venture investment. While more money than ever is going into the private markets, the wealth isn't being spread around. Crunchbase News offers three charts showing how VC is being concentrated at the top. 2️⃣ Think like an athlete Byron Deeter, an investor with Bessemer Venture Partners, has backed some of the most innovative companies of our time, such as Anthropic and Waymo. In this episode of the Masters of Scale podcast, he talks about why CEOs need to think more like athletes, shares some advice for both founders and investors in this era of AI transformation, and more. 3️⃣ Strengths and weaknesses To be a more effective leader, should you focus on building your strengths or fixing your weaknesses? It's a pretty confronting but it's necessary to face this if leaders want to accelerate their development and bring their team to success. According to this Harvard Business Review article, leaders shouldn't choose between the two. Instead, they should first figure out what their situation requires by asking four key questions. 4️⃣ Lessons from Florence We're all familiar with Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. While she's best known as a dedicated nurse, she was also behind disruptive innovation in the healthcare space. This piece from the MIT Sloan Management Review explores three elements of her work that carry timeless leadership lessons. 5️⃣ Insights from a young investor Smaiyl Makyshov dropped out of Brown University at 21 years old to start Multifaceted Capital. His VC firm is looking to leverage communities that emerge out of boarding schools in the US. He shares more about his journey and conviction with Business Insider. EVENTS HAPPENING You can also check out our curated list of trending tech events and Tech in Asia's signature events. Partner with Tech in Asia Conference 2026 AI's landscape is shifting from experimentation to full-scale deployment. This is reflected in Singapore's move toward coordinated national execution, particularly its establishment of the National AI Council and industry-wide AI missions. Learn how your brand can keep pace with the trends at Tech in Asia Conference 2026. Explore partnership opportunities today. Eddi Danusaputro on the exit reality At the Asia Economic Summit 2026 on June 17, Amvesindo chairman Eddi Danusaputro brings a practitioner's perspective shaped by investing in over 30 startups - including Bukalapak, GoTo, Amartha, and PrivyID - to unpack what it takes to move from private growth to credible exit in Southeast Asia's tightening capital environment. Save US$354 with Early Bird access at US$234 (from US$588). Offer ends on April 26. Explore the full agenda. 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. 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