The View | The trends driving Asia’s start-up boom in 2022, from digitalisation to carbon cutting
- With an abundance of capital and talent, Asia’s growing tech hubs are luring investors away from Silicon Valley
- Start-ups seeking to solve global issues such as climate change, ageing-related illnesses and supply-chain bottlenecks will offer solid opportunities
Uber, Airbnb and WhatsApp: all were founded in the wake of the last economic crisis in 2008. This time, could the next economic dynamos come out of Asia? After a slew of successful start-ups in 2021, momentum is gathering in the region.
As the dust settles from the economic disruption of the past two years, attention will shift towards technologies that promise a more resilient, sustainable and healthy future. While country and economy-level dynamics shape start-up markets, three broad trends offer a key to understanding the industry’s future.
Low interest rates over the past year have made venture capital relatively cheap. That might change if rates rise this year, but there will still be capital available as players from private equity to Wall Street pile into the venture world. Venture capital is also looking like a good bet because there is so much value and talent to be unlocked outside Silicon Valley.
In 2019, 18 per cent of the Asia-based start-ups that received Series A funding in 2021 were in Beijing, but in 2021 only 10 per cent were, according to company database Crunchbase. Overall, the percentage of Series A rounds in Asia going to companies in China, South Korea and Japan fell, but the proportion in India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore rose.
