End-of-Month April 2021 Financial Highlights

Deal Flow

Mergers & Acquisitions

• Micron Technology and Western Digital are each exploring a deal for Bain Capital-owned Kioxia Holdings that could value the Japanese semiconductor company at ~$30B (WSJ)
• CVC Capital Partners submitted an initial offer to take Toshiba private in a potential deal worth $20B+ (BBG)
  • At this valuation, it would be the largest PE buyout since 2013 and CVC’s largest acquisition on record
• Tokyo-based industrial giant Hitachi will buy GlobalLogic, the global software engineering services provider, for $9.6B (WSJ)
• Japanese conglomerate Hitachi is selling its metal unit to a group led by Bain Capital for $3.5B (BBG)
• Blackstone offered to take a controlling stake in Indian IT outsourcing services provider Mphasis in a deal worth up to $2.8B (BBG)  
• Indian internet online learning company Byju acquired tutoring company Aakash Educational Services for ~$1B (TC)
• Chinese battery maker CATL will acquire a ~24% stake in China Molybdenum Co’s Kisanfu copper-cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo for $137.5M (RT)
• Indian multinational conglomerate Reliance Industries will buy Stoke Park, an owner and manager of a hotel (the setting for two James Bond films) and sports and leisure facilities in Buckinghamshire, for $79M (BBG)

Venture Capital

• Chinese delivery giant Meituan raised ~$10B in a “top-up” placement (BBG)
• Indian food delivery startup Swiggy raised an $800M round (TC)
• Trax, a Singapore-based retail analytics company, raised a $640M Series E led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and BlackRock (TC)
• ShareChat, the Indian social network app, raised a $502M Series E at a $2.1B valuation led by Tiger Global (TC)
• Volvo’s EV brand Polestar raised a $500M round led by Chongqing Chengxing (TC)
• Indian social commerce startup Meesho raised a $300M Series E at a $2.1B valuation led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 (TC)
• AirAsia plans $300M funding round for its digital arm (BBG)
• Indian fintech Zeta raised a ~$250M Series D at a $1.3B valuation led by SoftBank Vision Fund II (TC)
• Indian payments app CRED raised a $215M Series D at a $2.2B valuation led by Coatue and Falcon Edge Capital (TC)
• Razorpay, the Indian fintech startup, raised a $160M Series C at a $3B valuation led by GIC and Sequoia Capital India (TC)
• Chinese game distribution platform TapTap received a ~$123M investment from streaming platform Bilibili (TC)
• Indian social commerce startup DealShare raised a $100M Series D led by Tiger Global (TC)
• Groww, an Indian investment app for millennials, raised an $83M Series D at a $1B+ valuation led by Tiger Global (TC)
• Laiye, a Chinese automation startup similar to UiPath, raised a $50M Series C+ led by Ping An Global Voyager Fund and Shanghai AI Industry Equity Investment Fund (TC)
• Indonesian hyperlocal social commerce startup Super raised a $28M Series B led by SoftBank Ventures Asia (TC)
• Indian crypto startup Coinswitch Kuber raised a $25M Series B at a $500M valuation led by Tiger Global (TC)
• Robo-advisor StashAway raised a $25M Series D led by Sequoia Capital India (TC)
• Glints, a Singapore-based career platform, raised a $22.5M Series C led by Japanese HR management firm PERSOL Holdings (TC)
• Indian healthcare-efficiency startup HealthPlix raised a $13.5M Series B led by Lightspeed (TC)
• Indonesian edtech startup CoLearn raised a $10M Series A led by Alpha Wave Incubation and GSV Ventures (TC)
• Vanadium ion battery developer Standard Energy raised an $8.9M Series C from SoftBank Ventures Asia (TC)
• Taiwanese MLOps startup InfuseAI raised a $4.3M Series A led by Wistron Corporation (TC)
• Dat Bike, a Vietnamese electric motorbike startup, raised a $2.6M pre-Series A led by Jungle Ventures (TC)
• Indonesian consumer research startup Populix raised a $1.2M pre-Series A led by Intudo Ventures (TC)

Initial Public Offering/Direct Listing

• Chinese ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing confidentially filed for a US IPO at as much as a $70-100B valuation. It’s also exploring a dual-listing in Hong Kong at a later time (BBG)
• Kakao Entertainment, the digital comic and movie-making unit of South Korean mobile tech company Kakao, is looking into a US IPO at a potential ~$18B valuation (BBG)
• Asian insurance firm FWD Group is leaning towards a US IPO seeking to raise ~$3B (BBG)
• SK IE Technology, the EV battery material unit of South Korean energy supplier SK Innovation, raised $2B in their IPO (BBG)
• Vietnam conglomerate Vingroup JSC is considering a US IPO of its car unit VinFast that could raise ~$2B at a valuation of $50B (BBG)
• China Vanke, the country’s largest developer by MV, is preparing for a HK listing of its property management business that could raise ~$2B (BBG)
• Indian food delivery startup Zomato plans to raise $1.1B in upcoming IPO (TC)
• PT Dayamitra Telekomunikasi, the infrastructure unit of state-owned PT Telkom Indonesia, is considering an IPO in Jakarta that could raise ~$1B (BBG)
• Property developer and manager Mapletree Investments is exploring listing a student housing REIT in Singapore that could raise ~$1B (BBG)
• Indian cement manufacturer Nuvoco Vistas plans for $800M IPO (BBG)
• Del Monte Philippines, best known for its pineapple products, filed for an IPO in Manila that could raise up to $791M (BBG)
• Japanese job site operator Visional, which operates the popular Bizreach recruiting platform, price its IPO at the top of the range to raise ~$632M at a ~$1.65B valuation and began trading today on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (BBG)
• Chinese edtech startup Zuoyebang is considering a $500M US IPO (BBG)
• Nykaa E-Retail Pvt., an online cosmetics retailer, is seeking at least $500M at a $4B valuation in Mumbai IPO (BBG)
• Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways is planning an IPO to raise ~$200M at a market cap of up to $4B (BBG)
• China-based customer engagement software company Infobird popped 181% after raising $25M (BBG)

Special Purpose Acquisition Company

• Grab, the Singapore-based ride-hailing, food-delivery, and digital-wallet company, will merge with Altimeter Growth at a $39.6B valuation; the largest SPAC to date (WSJ)

Bankruptcy/Restructuring

• Chinese state-owned steel firm Ansteel Group is planning a ‘strategic restructuring’ of regional rival Ben Gang Group to step up consolidation of the steel sector (RT)

This Month’s Featured Company: Line

Founded in 2011 in Japan as a disaster response app, today Line has over 220 million Monthly Active Users (and more than 700 million registered users) globally. 71% of the total has been dominated by users from Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand. The company’s annual revenue as of 2019 was USD 2.1 billion (JPY 227.49 billion).

In the past few years, the platform has grown beyond just a messenger app. It has since found great success by branching out with its digital commerce service. Line services now include an entertainment platform similar to Netflix; a shopping and business official account similar to Amazon; food delivery, messenger, and transportation services similar to Uber; and a payment gateway similar to Apple Pay.

LINE’s commercial transaction volume has grown by over 70% y-o-y for each of its industries.

• LINE’s 78.8% growth in shopping transaction volume y-o-y is largely a result of LINE SHOPPING GO, released in 2018
• Food transaction volume showed a similar increase of 76.3% y-o-y, released in 2019
• LINE Pay recently showed 10.1% y-o-y growth worldwide while LINE Pay Global Monthly increased its base of active users by 181.1% y-o-y

For its unparalleled services, Line has become an excellent tool for marketers and has proven its effectiveness as a marketing and sales platform.

Sources: Line, Lexicon Thai, Business of Apps

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Authored by

Paulo Guedes is Research Analyst based in our Thailand office (Bangkok).