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A China-based novel (yes, as in fictional prose) app closed nearly $100 million
An Indonesia-based payment firm bagged US$53 million
A beauty startup in Indonesia secured US$58 million.

TechAsia compiled all the investment deals this week into a chart below so that you can see how eye-popping the movement of funding is in Asia. The full chart is available in our weekly funding news wrap-up article (🔒).

Apart from funding activities, here’s another exciting movement in the venture capital front: Sequoia Capital India has secured US$1.35 billion for two new funds that target opportunities across India and Southeast Asia.

Let’s dive into this week’s biggest deals plus mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

The biggest deals by country

🇮🇳 Reliance Jio: An Indian conglomerate that owns telecommunications and digital services. Raised US$253 million from Intel Corporation.

🇨🇳 Kuaidian: A Chinese content platform for novels and drama videos. Raised US$100 million from GGV Capital, MorningSide Ventures Capital (晨兴资本), and Sequoia Capital.

🇮🇩 Social Bella: An Indonesian beauty ecommerce platform. Raised US$53 million from ACE & Company, B Capital Group, BRI Ventures, Insignia Ventures Partners, Quiet Capital, Tiger Global Management, and Y Combinator.

🇸🇬 Transcelestial Technologies: A Singaporean internet infrastructure startup. Raised US$9.6 million from Airbus Ventures, Cap Vista, EDBI, Entrepreneur First, Partech, Seeds Capital, Tekton Ventures, and Wavemaker Partners.

🇯🇵 Sharedine: A Japanese platform that helps users on business trips find chefs. Raised US$2 million from Coral Capital, Future Venture Capital, Monex Ventures, Nissay Nippon Life Insurance Company, Sumitomo Mitsui Venture Capital, and ISGS Investment Works.

Full list of this week’s funding chart: 106 deals recorded in Asia and $1.24b raised (🔒)

Other interesting funding news

Ex-Grab executives got $7 million in a series A round for their Singapore-based AI startup NextBillion. The fundraise was co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Falcon Edge Capital.

TiinTiin, an Indonesian auction-based marketplace for secondhand vehicles landed $2.5 million in seed funding. The round was led by its CEO Rolf Monteiro, who also founded used-car platform BeliMobilGue, as well as Amand Ventures and PT Luminary Media Nusantara.

Accounting app BukuWarung secured an undisclosed amount of funding in a pre-series A round led by Quona Capital, pushing its total funding into eight-digit territory.

M&A

🇮🇳 Indian learning app Unacademy has acquired local medical exam preparation platform PrepLadder for $50 million.

🇸🇬 Hong Kong-based financial institution AMTD Group has acquired Singapore-based alternative payment platform Fomo Pay.

Deep-thinking reads

As remote work rises, HR tech firms spot an opening (🔒) – The rise of remote jobs has created opportunities for HR-related startups as they help employers tackle new challenges.

Lessons from the fall of luxury e-tailer Leflair (🔒) – After being summoned by the Vietnam police last week, Leflair’s CEO and co-founder talks about how he’s taking responsibility and what he has learned so far from the startup’s demise.

As Oyo Indonesia furloughed 400 staff, some workers and hotels pushed back (🔒) – Besides furloughing staff, Oyo Indonesia has also changed its revenue model for hotel partners – a move that has seen pushback.

Zilingo cuts 12% of jobs – here’s what happened behind the scenes (🔒) – The almost-unicorn continues to cut its workforce. We spoke to current and former employees to find out the company’s struggles as it grapples with Covid-19.