February 14, 2021 Southeast Asia has drawn increasing interest from global venture capital (VC) firms wanting a slice of the emerging market growth story. A total of $4.08 billion was raised by nine global funds in 2020 with significant allocations for private companies in the region, a massive jump from $867 million bagged by five funds in 2019, per our latest report, SE Asia’s VC Funds: Q4 2020 Review. On the other hand, Southeast Asia’s venture capital firms suffered a significant 39% drop in fundraising at $1.96 billion in 2020, as travel restrictions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased limited partner caution affected fundraising. Staying with data-led stories, we captured deal-making activity in Greater China where private equity and venture capital firms took a breather in January after the hectic deal flow witnessed towards the end of 2020. Chinese startups collected almost $7.5 billion in January 2021, down 17.6% from December, according to our data. The downturn, usually transitory, is seen in the first two months of every year ahead of the week-long Lunar New Year holiday.