Singapore-based Jungle Ventures, a venture capital firm that primarily focuses on Series A and Series B investments in startups in Southeast Asia, announced on October 30, 2019 that they just closed their Jungle Ventures III and successfully raised US$240 million – including US$40 million in separately managed account commitments – which is more than double the amount raised for their second round in 2016. The third fund will be used to support and grow startups in the Southeast Asia region, reflecting the increasing attention that the region’s tech startups and companies are getting from VC firms around the world.
According to Amit Anand, Jungle Ventures’ managing partner, more than 90% of the capital comes from institutional investors, with a large portion hailing from the United States and Europe. Some of the investors include Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, Cisco Investments, Dutch bank FMO, the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Germany’s development finance institution Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG).
Anand said that the US$240 million raised for its third investment vehicle well surpassed the initial target range of US$150 million to US$200 million. For comparison, the firm raised US$100 million for its second investment vehicle in 2016 and raised US$10 million for its first investment vehicle in 2012.
Jungle Ventures’ portfolio include category-defining companies such as Kredivo, Moglix, Paysense and Mobikon. Other companies that they have successfully backed include Singapore-based hospitality startup RedDoorz, Thai online retail provider Pomelo Fashion, and cloud-based software provider Deskera.
Jungle Ventures’ latest fund comes at a time when an increasingly growing number of venture capital firms, including Golden Gate Ventures, an early-stage VC firm in Southeast Asia founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and Vertex Ventures, a worldwide group of venture capital funds with teams in the United States, China, India and Southeast Asia, are setting their eyes on the Southeast Asia region.
Traditionally viewed as a disparate region of countries with essentially more differences than similarities that make it challenging for companies and firms to penetrate, Southeast Asia is quickly establishing itself as a region on par with any developed market due to its swiftly rising Internet penetration, fast mobile technology adoption and demographic shifts. All of these changes mean that the region is now home to a fairly homogenous addressable market of more than 250 million Internet-savvy and mobile-friendly young people.
With the closing of Jungle Ventures III that raised US$240 million for its third fund, this makes the company one of the largest venture capital firms in Southeast Asia. According to Jungle Ventures, their approach ever since they launched their debut fund in 2012 was called ‘build to last’. With this approach, they aim to help build profitable and capital-efficient firms from day one while supporting them with patient long-term capital. This approach has paid off handsomely as the combined revenue of 7 of their early stage investments from Jungle Ventures II has grown more than 30-fold over 4 years even as combined costs grew only about 5-fold.
With the new funds secured for its latest investment vehicle, Jungle Ventures will look to further accelerate the growth of Southeast Asian startups and play a prominent role in the region’s historic economic and technological evolution.
