2021 saw record-high investments in Southeast Asia ($14.2 billion), but come November, it all changed – with a market correction that is continuing to show its effects. Are we back to the bleak “RIP Good times” year of 2008?
At Tech Investment in Southeast Asia: On the crest of a wave, our own Jianggan Li and Dmitry Levit from Cento Ventures had a candid chat about the year that was 2021, the trends and sectors that made it big, the effects of the market correction in Southeast Asia and on a global context.
If you missed the event, you can watch the video replay here.
We have also summarized the most insightful points from the event in this article, the first of a four-part series.
So what did we talk about?
2021 saw record-high investments at 70% YoY growth
Investment volume in 2021 was slow in the first half, but towards the year-end, the American market capital started spilling over to Southeast Asia.
There was an influx of American money in late-stage mega deals
Late-stage mega deals slowed down a bit in the first half of 2021, but the numbers rose in the second half since a handful of companies went IPO. This high number was contributed by American late-stage money – private equity and cross-over funds.
And in November 2021, the market retracted
Just as things got comfortable, we saw the market retract due to inflation and an increase in interest rates towards the end of last year and stock prices crashed!
Are we back to 2008?
All hope is not lost! There’s undeployed capital waiting on the horizon
It’s a little bit too early to panic. The amount of undeployed capital is at an all-time high and this needs to be deployed. Let’s wait for the war to come to an end