Singapore

• Singapore-headquartered climate-tech startup Zuno Carbon has secured US$2.5 million in seed funding led by Wavemaker Partners. SEEDS Capital and Blue InCube Ventures also participated.
• This brings the total funds raised by Zuno Carbon in the past 12 months to over US$3 million and follows a pre-seed round in June last year.
• The money will be used to ramp up Zuno Carbon’s sales and marketing efforts, launch new features to simplify compliance and catalyse decarbonisation with real, tangible actions.

• Singapore-headquartered RNA technology company, Mirxes Holding, has completed its Series D funding round, securing US$50 million.
• The round is anchored by existing and new investors, including Beijing Fupu, EDBI, Mitsui & Co., NHH Venture Fund, and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research.
• Mirxes Holding will use the capital to scale the adoption and penetration of its stomach cancer blood test, GASTROClear, in major Asia-Pacific markets, including Southeast Asia, China, and Japan.

• CapitaLand Ascott Trust (CLAS SP) is looking to raise around S$200m from its primary follow-on. Included in the deal is another S$100m preferential offering to existing shareholders.
• Proceeds will be used towards acquiring three new properties, and for asset enhancement initiatives.
• The deal would be a relatively large one for the REIT to digest, at 31.6 days of three month ADV.

• Singapore-based startup Bunker, which provides a modern financial analytics platform for SMEs, has secured over US$5 million over two funding rounds.
• The investors include January Capital, Alpha JWC, GFC, Northstar Group, Money Forward, Alpine Ventures, and Patamar Capital.
• Angel investors, namely Chris Lin, Rosemary DeAaragon, Tiger Fang, Gaurav Gupta, Christian Sutardi, Warren Tseng, Jonathan Wong, Nakul Malhotra, and Shaun Hon, also participated.

• kopi-C with Uni-Asia Group’s CFO: “Being small sets us apart” Uni-Asia Group Chief Financial Officer Lim Kai Ching explains how staying small and diversified has allowed the company to find a niche in shipping vessels and property investments.
• This is the belief of Mr.
• Lim Kai Ching, Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Uni-Asia Group, an alternative investment company that has forged its specialty in niche assets within the property and shipping markets.

• Sheng Siong (SSG SP) reported another resilient quarter with revenue growth at 4.7% YoY and profit growth flat, with annualized ROCEs at 27%. 
• Net cash grew to 289 mn SGD (highest ever now at 12% of market capitalization). The company is expected to expand by 3-4 stores in FY23 for Singapore.
• While the stock is not cheap at 19x/18x FY23e/FY24e and 3.8% dividend yield, we see prospects for margin expansion in further quarters as execution remains high quality.

• PingSafe, a Singapore-based cybersecurity firm, has raised US$3.3 million in a seed funding round led by Surge, the scale-up program of Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA). The round also saw participation from Tanglin Ventures and several angel investors.
• The company will use the fresh funds to expand its business across Southeast Asia and North America.
• Founded in 2022 by CEO Anand Prakash and CTO Nishant Mittal, PingSafe provides a cloud security platform that protects companies’ data and apps from cyber attacks.

XP Power reported year-on-year revenue growth of 30% in H123 as it made good progress shipping from its elevated backlog. As expected, orders declined year-on-year, but the c £250m backlog still provides at least nine months’ revenue visibility. The company continues to invest for the longer term in Malaysia (manufacturing) and the United States (R&D). With no change to management’s full year expectations, we maintain our normalised operating profit forecasts for FY23 and FY24 and nudge up our interest cost forecast for FY23.

• 5 S-Reits with year-on-year improvements in H1 2023 DPU Among them, 10 S-Reits reported higher year-on-year (yoy) net property income (NPI) for the half-year period ended Jun 30, 2023.
• CDL Hospitality Trusts’ H1 2023 NPI increased by 23.3 per cent yoy, largely attributed to Singapore, Japan, Australia, Europe and UK markets.

• We expect Shopee’s competitive landscape deteriorated in 2Q23, due to increased pressure from TikTok/Lazada in ASEAN, Coupang in Taiwan, and Shein in Brazil. Temu is a large swing factor.
• Shopee has been pushing live streaming and its full-management (or consignment) mode. In our view, these will drag down its profit margins and may not be effective in gaining share.
• We estimate 2Q23 revenue and non-GAAP net income are 2.5% and (24%) vs cons. We have revised down Shopee’s growth expectations for the next 3 years.

• Grab recently announced the acquisition of Trans-cab in Singapore, the 3rd largest taxi operator there. This will help to solve driver shortage issues and improve cost efficiencies.
• Taxis pay the lowest COE prices plus Grab can improve the productivity of taxi drivers through access to the Grab app. Trans-cab gives Grab access to street hailing. 
• Grab‘s Singapore digital bank recently raised new capital but has also seen its deposit cap lifted significantly, which is helping to significantly boost deposit growth.

• NEU Battery Materials, a Singapore-based lithium-ion battery recycling startup, has secured US$3.7 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round led by SGInnovate.
• ComfortDelGro Ventures, Shift4Good, Paragon Ventures I, and other angel investors also joined.
• These funds will accelerate the deployment of NEU Battery Materials’s automated recycling line, which will lower operational manpower requirements.

• NodeFlair, a Singapore-based career advancement platform for tech talents, announced today that it has raised US$2 million Series A funding.
• The funding round was led by Iterative with participation from 500 Global and PERSOL VENTURE PARTNERS, the corporate venture capital arm of HR management group PERSOL.
• Prominent angel investors Quek Siu Rui (CEO & Co-founder of Carousell), JJ Chai (CEO & Co-founder of Rainforest), and Siew Kum Hong (Former COO of AirBnB China) also participated in the funding round.

• Needle, an AI-powered marketing platform from Singapore, has raised US$1.2 million in its pre-seed round led by Iterative, with participation from Ethos Fund and Goldbell Financial Services. Angel investors, including Rainforest founder JJ Chai, also joined the round.
• The fresh capital will be used to expand Needle’s team, consisting of data scientists, AI trainers, and engineers.
• Needle helps ecommerce brands optimize their marketing activities. By analyzing data from various platforms, Needle provides personalized recommendations and automates campaign creation, helping firms reduce costs and improve return on investment.

• SINGAPORE-LISTED real estate investment trusts (S-Reits) continue to hold up despite decelerating global growth, with the iEdge S-Reit Index generating 2.1 per cent in total returns in the first half of 2023, outperforming the Straits Times Index’s 1.2 per cent and the FTSE EPRA Nareit Asia ex Japan Index’s -1.7 per cent.
• The 10 S-Reits were Keppel DC Reit, Cromwell European Reit (Cromwell E-Reit), Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust, Frasers Hospitality Trust, Paragon Reit, Frasers Centrepoint Trust, Aims Apac Reit, ParkwayLife Reit, CapitaLand India Trust, and CapitaLand Ascott Trust.
• Outperformance was driven across specialised, healthcare and hospitality sub-sectors at 7.5 per cent, 5.2 per cent, and 4.1 per cent total returns respectively.

• Union Gas Holdings’ Teo Hark Piang ups stake to 8.05% Seatrium, Wilmar International, Singapore Airlines (SIA), UOL Group and DBS Group led the net institutional inflow for the five sessions.
• With over 40 years of operating track record, Union Gas Holdings’ three key businesses comprise liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, and diesel.