Series A funding rounds dominated the venture capital (VC) funding landscape across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in both volume and value terms during the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2019, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Compared to the announcement of 825 deals (with disclosed funding rounds) worth US$16.5bn in Q4 2018, a total of 1,202 deals (US$21.5bn) were announced in Q4 2019.

Early stage funding deals (comprising Seed and Series A) accounted for 71% of VC funding volume in 2019, out of which Series A accounted for the majority share. The quarter also witnessed the announcement of 585 Series A funding rounds, which is the highest among all the funding rounds announced during the quarter.

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China accounted for 65.2% share of early stage funding volume, distantly followed by India, which garnered 13.1% of such funding. Other key countries that attracted significant number of early stage funding during Q4 2019 include South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Australia and Indonesia.

Some of the notable early stage funding rounds announced during Q4 2019 included US$3.7bn raised by Tenglong Holdings (Tamron), US$141.1m secured by Chihiro Location Network (Qianxun Spatial Intelligence) and US$110.8m raised by MX Player.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, says: “Though growth/expansion/late stage funding rounds (comprising Series B, Series C, Series D, Series E, Series F, Series G, Series H, Series I and Series J) are fewer in number compared to early stage funding rounds, they are much larger in the average deal value.”

Growth/expansion/late stage funding accounted for 70.4% of funding value in Q4 2019. China accounted for 61.7% share of the capital raised through these rounds followed by India with 26.4% share. Other key countries that raised notable growth/expansion/late stage funding during Q4 2019 included Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Australia and South Korea.

Some of the notable growth/expansion/late stage funding rounds announced during Q4 2019 included US$3bn funding raised by Beijing Kuaishou Technology (Kuaishou Technology), US$1.5bn funding in Oravel Stays (OYO Rooms) and US$1bn raised by One97 Communications (Paytm).