NEWSPAPER SECTION: ASIA FOCUS WRITER: ERICH PARPART

Thailand trails ASEAN peers in the super startup race, mainly because investors are waiting for a truly great idea

With an eye on health care and education as the most promising sectors, Indonesia is expected to be home to five startups worth at least US $ billion by the end of 2019.

Southeast Asia’s largest economy has already given birth to four unicorns, as billion-dollar startups are known: the ride-hailing firm Go-Jek ($10 billion), the e-commerce site Tokopedia ($7 billion), the travel site Traveloka ($2 billion), and the online marketplace Bukalapak ($1 billion).

Singapore is close behind in the unicorn race with three big entrants led by the super-app Grab (copy1 billion); Sea Group, the holding company for Garena, Shopee and Airplay (IPO valuation $4.9 billion), and the gaming hardware maker Razer ($4.4 billion). The city-state was also the birthplace of Lazada, the region’s biggest shopping site, though it was started by the Germany-based incubator Rocket Internet and is now majority owned by Alibaba of China.

Other unicorns in the region include the Vietnamese online gaming platform VNG Corp, and the Filipino home builder Revolution Precrafted ($1 billion).

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