In 2024, around $70 billion was raised by Asian tech companies from global capital markets across debt and equity markets with this growth in the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sector is expected to continue to grow in the region in 2025.
Last year several major deals in the Asia Pacific (Apac) tech sector, including the acquisition of Australia's data centre player AirTrunk for A$24 billion ($15 billion), by Blackstone and CCP Investments; the deal completed on December 23.
The emergence of China’s DeepSeek has just shaken up the artificial intelligence (AI) sector over the last week by providing sophisticated AI chat model that is open source, and already competing with OpenAI. The relatively small company is based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, and is backed by hedge fund founder Liang Wenfeng.
The platform has shown to have great applications and wiped $600 billion of market value off the shares of Nividia, the creator of Open AI, on Monday, January 27. The firm managed the feat with using older Nividia chips, after former US president Joe Biden blocked exports of the newest versions, and, reportedly foras little as $6 million, which is in stark contrast to the billions of dollars being spent in the US.
2025 Asia growth
Following the $70 billion raised last year, global bank Citi, which has a large Apac footprint, is expecting to see growth in tech and equity investments this year in the region once again.
Ho-Yin Lee, Citi’s Asia head of technology & communications, investment banking, said: “Citi expects higher volumes in the region across the TMT sector and is forecasting issuance to grow by at least 10%."
Citi was the top ranked bank for Asia (ex-Japan) for TMT fundraising in 2024, according to Bloomberg data.
Hong Kong-based Lee added: “We expect to see largely a continuation of 2024 trends, in particular in AI. AI driven funding across the region – hardware supply chain and digital infrastructure (data centers, tower, fiber) as examples – will continue to underpin issuance.”
Lee continued: “Shareholder returns remain a big focus in Asia, including share buybacks and dividends from tech companies. Investors are increasingly re-focused on growth in addition to profitability. Expected stronger markets and economic growth globally is likely to also bring stronger fundraising from both private and public markets.”
As the fallout from Monday's dramatic market drop in the US unfolds it will be interesting to see if there is more of a focus on value rather than investment moving forward, with the hundreds of billions of dollars slated for US president Donald Trump's AI Stargate project under scrutiny. OpenAI and SoftBank have agreed to invest in Trump's AI vision with the exact details of the project yet to be disclosed.
