27-Apr-23 12:00

Dr Sivapalan Vivekarajah, Co-founder and Managing Partner | Xelia Tong, Managing Partner, ScaleUp Malaysia

The era of easy money looks to be over and with it the funding winter has arrived, impacting the private equity landscape, including venture capital. With this in mind, it's understandable why we're hearing that some startups are finding it relatively more difficult to raise funds.

And this has come despite the fact that there's plenty of investable funds. Bain's Asia-Pacific Private Equity Report 2022 noted that in 2022, funds in Asia-Pacific reached a record level of US$650 billion. Looking at Malaysia, based on data reported in the Securities Commission Malaysia's Annual Report 2021, total committed funds in private equity and venture capital rose over 26% to RM14.8 billion in 2021, of which, just over RM5 billion was for venture capital.

So despite plenty of dry powder, 2022 was a tough year for startups to raise funds leading to the so-called funding winter.

Today on BizBytes we explore the reasons why VCs have become more selective and how startups can survive in these conditions with ScaleUp Malaysia's Dr Sivapalan Vivekarajah and Xelia Tong.