The excitement in recent years had been centred around the early-stage venture capital space. : SINGAPORE - South-east Asia has a robust pipeline of high-quality start-ups that are finding it hard to secure funding at a time when they need cash to grow, resulting in a dearth of large deals. While the region has been abuzz with private capital investments in recent years, the excitement was centred around the early-stage venture capital (VC) space for nascent start-ups. There were fewer deals in private equity (PE), which tends to invest in mature companies operating in traditional industries.