🎭🖱️ Will This Company be The Next Canva of 3D Art?

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Here's what we got for you:

• 🌊 The SEA - PixCAp - The Company That's Trying to be The Canva of 3D art

• ⛵ SEAppets - VinFast is cutting jobs in the US

• 💰 SEA Deals  

• 🖼️ AI Image of the day

• 🐣 Tweet of the day

Markets 📈

If the 2020 art style was Alegria or Corporate Memphis, you know, those brightly coloured human-like figures with wobbly limbs and disproportionate torsos...

Then 2023 is all about 3D elements. We're starting to see a rise in startups trying to be the next Canva of 3D art and this startup from Southeast Asia might have a short.

I'm talking about Singapore-based PixCap.

🤷‍♂️ Who is PixCap? 

• Founded in 2020 by CJ Looi and Cyril Nie, PixCap is a no-code, web-based 3D design tool that allows users with no design experience to create 3D illustrations and animations

• The platform currently has over 30,000 users with around a thrid in North America

🛗 The Pitch

• CJ Looi, CEO of PixCap thinks that the web experience is undergoing what he called an "evolution from 2D to 3D"

• Tech firms like Foodpanda, Alibaba, Shopee, TikTok have all started to incorporate 3D elements into their logos, ads and landing pages over the past 2 years

• Gojek even spent close to USD $200,000 on a branding agency just to create 3D icons for their apps, landing pages and social media

• But designers with 3D animation skills are hard to come by and that's why PixCap is trying to make the transition to 3D cheaper and more accessible

• Instead of spending hundreds of thousands on hiring someone, marketers can do the job themselves by dragging and dropping a 3D social media graphic on PixCap using its library of templates

💰 Funding

• PixCap just raised USD $2.8 million from a seed round funding

• It was one of the 15 startups that were selected for the seventh cohort of Surge, Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia's accelerator program

SEAppets ⛵

1. WhatsApp Status, WhatsApp's take on Snapchat stories has received a number of updates to make it more appealing to users. One of the latest additions is the ability to set voice notes as status updates. Besides that, WhatsApp updates also include a "private audience selector" that lets users choose who can view their status. There are also some other updates like status profile rings, status reactions and link previews.

Ok who the hell uses WhatsApp status?

2. Vietnamese EV maker, VinFast is cutting jobs in the US and Canada as part of a restructuring that will merge operations across the two countries. That said, the headcount would not shrink in Vietnam where most of the company's staff are located. VinFast said it had hired about 150 people in the US, many in sales, supports and distribution roles as part of the company's sales model to go direct-to-consumer.

3. Softbank halts new funding the firm lost nearly USD $6 billion last quarter. This is the fourth straight quarter in which Softbank Group has lost money. The company has deployed more capital in the tech markets globally than anyone else in the past decade but now the company's chief finance officer Yoshimitsu Goto said the firm is in “defence mode”. Softbank is also taking a "cautious approach" to investing in crypto after losing USD $97 million in FTX but remains a "high-conviction" in AI.

I hate to break it to you but the days of a low interest-rate environment are long gone. Softbank and a lot of VC fund out there are going to have a tough time raising more capital.

SEA Deals 💰

1. Singapore-based business financing company, Right Choice Capital has gotten the green light to acquire Rural Bank of San Luis (RBSL). RSBL is a fully licensed rural bank in the Pampanga region of the Philippines. Right Choice Capital is currently raising USD $10 million towards its Series A round to support its rapid scaling and to acquire more bank and financial services businesses during Q1 and Q3 of 2023.

2. ION Mobility, a Singapore-based EV maker has raised USD $18.7 million in its Series A funding round. The company also brought TVS Motor Company on board as its strategic investor through TVS Motor’s Singapore subsidiary, TVS Motor (Singapore). The proceeds will be used to grow the local team and operations in Indonesia which includes marketing, local supply chain networks and manufacturing capabilities in the country.

3. Philippine conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp is buying one-third of Axelum Resources Corp for USD $97.7 million. Axelum manufactures coconut products like milk powder, cream and oil in the southern Philippines and exports to 23 countries.

4. VFlowTech, a vanadium-based redox flow (VRF) battery company in Singapore has raised USD $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Japanese VC firm Real Tech Holdings. VFlowTech claims to develop the cheapest and most efficient modular VRF batteries which deliver long-lasting energy storage solutions at an affordable price. The investment will be used to scale manufacturing capacity as well as expand into Turkey, US, Japan and India.

AI image of the day 🖼️

Portraits from the World Clown War

Tweet of the day 🐣

Here's something to think about today: are you in the right race?

That's a wrap for today. See you all tomorrow! 👋