A quick look at the state of Southeast Asia’s tech ecosystem in 2018

"2018 was a year of continued growth and new breakthroughs for Southeast Asia’s tech startup ecosystem....

Although Singapore led in terms of total amount of startup funding recorded this year, Indonesia’s average deal sizes overtook that of Singapore.

This is because the country had far fewer deals and the huge investment deals raised by its two unicorns – GOJEK and Tokopedia – managed to skew the average deal size per startup to a whopping US$220 million.

Of course, the 327 deals recorded in Singapore were 3.5 times that of Indonesia’s 93, which also affected the calculation of the above.

To add context to those figures, here’s a one-liner for each of the ASEAN-6 to sum up each their narrative in 2018.

- Singapore: The government continues to ramp up deep tech innovations as part of its Smart Nation drive, giving rise to the new ABCDs in tech- Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, cybersecurity, data science.

- Malaysia: Major political changes and high profile movements within MDEC and MaGIC, two influential agencies driving Malaysia’s innovation movement.

- Indonesia: The country is finally embracing cashless payment, with competition among Go-Pay, Tcash, OVO, and Dana.

- Thailand: The government approved the use of seven key cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ether, for various commercial and retail applications.

- Vietnam: The only country with 2 equally vibrant startup hubs — Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City — has moved beyond frontier Market status and is firmly a growth market.

- Philippines: The Philippines ecosystem has been quick to adopt blockchain technology; expect to see more blockchain innovations in the country."

To read more, including a list of "Tier 2 Cities", click here: