Interesting reads this week! #8

EM investors flock to gold and crypto safe havens; Sary and ShopUp merge to raise $110m

Apr 13, 2025

Tariff reax: Gold, crypto, PE secondaries in the spotlight 🌏💵

Global investors flocked to safety amid tariff turmoil this week, EM investors are no exception.

In the GCC, investors joined the gold rush — bullion prices are up by a fifth since the beginning of 2025. More interestingly, Indonesian investors have also allocated into crypto, in addition to gold and real estate safe havens.

One private banker said that several Indonesian clients with a net worth of between $100 million and $400 million have converted up to 10% of their assets into crypto. The shift began in October when Prabowo came to power but accelerated substantially after the rupiah plunged in March, the person said. (Source: Bloomberg)

The rupiah has since plunged to a new low on Wednesday on a mix of concerns of Prabowo’s ultra easy spending ways and Trump tariffs. Elsewhere around the world, Russia and China are beginning to settle energy trades in bitcoin, also thanks to Trump’s latest gift package to China. 🎁

That interest is no longer theoretical. China and Russia have reportedly begun settling some energy transactions in Bitcoin and other digital assets. Bolivia has announced plans to import electricity using crypto. And French energy utility EDF is exploring whether it can mine Bitcoin with surplus electricity currently exported to Germany.
These are early signs that Bitcoin is evolving from a speculative asset into a functional monetary tool—particularly in economies looking to bypass the dollar and reduce exposure to U.S.-led financial systems. (Source: Vaneck)

On the private equity side, PE stocks took a hit as the denominator effect from public markets drove liquidity concerns for the likes of KKR, Carlyle and Blackstone. Most of them saw 25-35% wiped off YTD (See chart below.)

TradingView chart — Created with TradingView

The prevailing uncertainty around IPOs and exits will likely drive an opportunity for secondaries, writes the FT.

In Southeast Asia, the lack of liquidity may eventually push PE firms to consider consolidation, especially with a lack of clarity around succession planning even among the region’s older GPs, according to DealStreetAsia.

ICYMI:

US-China trade war brings pros and cons for the Gulf (AGBI)
Big investors look to sell out of private equity after market rout (Financial Times)
Private equity is more stuck than ever — and secondaries will benefit (Financial Times)
Vaneck confirms that Russia and China are settling energy trades in bitcoin (The Street)
Private equity merger signals watershed moment in SE Asia (DealStreetAsia)
Rich Indonesians Wary of Prabowo’s Policies Send Wealth Overseas (Bloomberg)

Saudi’s Sary and Bangladesh’s ShopUp merge; raises $110m from Sanabil and Valar Ventures🫱🏻‍🫲🏼

Saudi Arabia’s Sary and Bangladesh’s ShopUp — both B2B marketplaces — announced a merger to form SILQ Group. It also raised $110 million from PIF’s Sanabil, Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Qatar Development Bank (QDB).

>$5 billion in transactions across both platforms
>$750 million in embedded financing disbursed
100 million shipments to retailers, hotels, restaurants and others.

The combined captable includes: Flourish Ventures, VSQ, MSA Capital, Rocketship VC, STV, Wafra Investment (owned by Kuwait PIFSS), Peak XV, Prosus, Tiger Global, Endeavor Catalyst, Raed Ventures.

A new financing arm called SILQ Financial will be formed to create financial infrastructure to scale its embedded financing and point-of-sales (POS) business.

Kristie’s hot take:🌶️

Bangladesh’s ShopUp has been eyeing the MENA market for a while now and has actually been EBITDA positive since December 2023 — which if you think about it — is even more impressive considering the number of public failures the B2B commerce model has suffered due to poor margins and mismanagement in Southeast Asia (Warung Pintar, GudangAda) and Egypt (Capiter) respectively.

I took to ChatGPT for a quick chart on funds raised across similar models in MENA and Southeast Asia. It’s pretty clear that Indonesian models raised quite heftily. (See below.) Obviously all that happened during the boom years.

(Do let me know if there are are errors or other names left out from this chart!)

This is a personal POV, but I do think this merger is a highly strategic for ShopUp — it instantly checks off one of MENA’s largest, most sought after and opaque consumer markets, while opening an exit pathway into Saudi’s Tadawul.

It also helps ShopUp paint a much bigger story for itself beyond Bangladesh and enlarges their TAM significantly. (A $682 billion Gulf-South Asia trade corridor!)

Accessing Kingdom money is highly sensible during volatile times like these, and given KSA’s commitment to building local tech heroes in local capital markets, it’s a win-win for everyone.

Your thoughts?