Venture capital (VC) investors are keeping an eye on the startups working in diverse emerging fields across key Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets. Against this backdrop, three of the top five VC funded startups in the region were from China in 2021, reveals GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company

An analysis of GlobalData’s ’s Financial Deals Database reveals that the three China-based startups Honeycomb Energy, Horizon Robotics and Leapmotor collectively attracted US$7.4bn VC funding during the year.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Startups active in emerging areas such as electric vehicles (EV), batteries, artificial intelligence (AI) and e-commerce have been garnering significant investors’ traction. China, which also has a conducive ecosystem with several startups working in such areas, managed to dominate the list. India-based Flipkart and Thai firm Lalamove Thailand were the two non-Chinese firms to complete the top five list.”

China-based electric batteries producer, Honeycomb Energy raised US$3.7bn the highest VC fund-raising among all the APAC companies during 2021. Flipkart, Horizon Robotics, Lalamove Thailand and Leapmotor raised US$3.6bn, US$2.3bn, US$1.5bn and US$1.4bn, respectively.

While Horizon Robotics is an AI startup, and Leapmotor is active in EV space, Flipkart offers e-commerce services and Lalamove Thailand is into logistics services.

Bose concludes: “China continues to be the most favorite destination for VC investors across APAC. Besides being the largest market in the region, the country remains a key global market and stands just next to the US in terms of VC funding deal volume as well as value.”