After two relatively weak quarters, venture capital investments in Asia have rebounded, reviving fundraising activities in China.
China accounted for eight of the region’s ten biggest deals in the quarter, including the largest funding, the USD 1.5 billion D+ financing round for the Shanghai-based electric vehicle (EV) maker WM Motor, according to KPMG’s Venture Pulse Q3 2020 report.
Other Chinese companies that bagged large VC investments include WM Motor’s competitor Xpeng (USD 500 million), which also debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in August, online healthcare platform JD Health (USD 830 million), medtech company MicroPort Medical Robots (USD 432 million), the grocery delivery apps Miss Fresh (USD 495 million) and Yipin Shengxian (USD 353 million), edtech firm Zhangmen.com (USD 450 million), as well as social and e-commerce app RED (USD 450 million).
“COVID-19 is driving a lot of investments in healthcare, accelerating innovations quite significantly even outside of virus-specific solutions,” said Philip Ng, head of technology of KPMG China. “We’re seeing rapid advancement in remote diagnostics and remote surgeries. Part of this is because of the development of 5G technology which is reducing the transmission delays.”
Ng added that COVID-19 is having a huge impact on many businesses, particularly in retail and commercial real estate. He expects M&A to become “quite common” in the next few quarters as cash flow becomes a major challenge.
Other parts of Asia, notably India, also attracted significant investments, such as Flipkart’s USD 1.2 billion and edtech BYJU’s USD 500 million capital injections, as well as Grab’s USD 200 million.
VC-backed companies in Asia collected a total of USD 21.1 billion from 1,285 deals, while the US was the largest region for venture capital investment, raising USD 37.8 billion in 2,285 deals.
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This article is part of KrASIA’s “Key Stat” series, where KrASIA picks and presents the most significant figures of the day’s technology and business world.