We believe all sectors will continue to experience rapid digitization over the next decade. This structural change will create unique opportunities for category-defining companies to be built.
We focus on partnering with founders who are building technologies that enable such change. We invest from ideation, but can support companies through their entire life cycle.
We target companies built in or for the Asia-Pacific region. We believe there are certain themes which will power economic growth in this region over the coming decades.
We do not expect to waiver in our focus. There are many venture funds with which founders can partner - we wish to become a capital partner for those who share our beliefs and values.
What we invest in
Our investment thesis is to invest in second order businesses. In every industry or sector, there are certain structural inhibitors that threaten to slow down the rate of progress or change. These problems are often seen as hard to build solutions for, because such solutions require founders to deeply understand the issue, and have the requisite expertise and resources.
We aspire to invest in and partner with founders who are solving these hard problems – our thesis is that these companies, should they be successful, build sustainable moats. Many of these problems sit in the technology infrastructure layer and may act as the “pipes and rails” for others. Examples include building seamless payments solutions, comprehensive integrated supply chain technologies, or highly accurate credit assessment technologies.
These companies are often one (or more) steps removed from the end consumer. They primarily have business-to-business or business-to-business-to-consumer “go to market” motion. Early in their lifecycle, these companies often attract less media coverage and investor interest. We say these companies are “built in the shadows”.
Because of this, the true impact of such companies may not be immediately apparent, but their progress speaks for itself. We prefer to partner with tenured founders whose passion and curiosity is relentless. Our view is that this intensity of focus is necessary to build an exceptional company. We seek these founders out, rather than wait for them to find us – this is second order investing.
Company stage
We wish to invest at stages in a company’s lifecycle where our capital and experience can be most impactful. We focus on investing from the Pre-Seed to Series B equity financing stage. We invest between $0.25 - $5 million as an initial check but have the capacity to invest substantially more over time. We have invested more than $25 million over the course of our partnership with portfolio companies.
Company sector
We focus on founders building ‘enablement’ technologies that reduce friction for businesses. We are thesis driven, which means our deals typically originate from our outbound approaches rather than via warm introductions. At any time, our investment team is focused on developing “clusters” of knowledge in 3 - 5 sectors. These sectors evolve regularly as we learn more. This is different to other venture funds. We typically know our founder teams for some time before we invest. We meet more than 2,000 companies per year and will be a quick ‘no’ if your business is not a strong fit for us.
Company geography
We invest in the following markets: Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand. We selectively consider other markets (in particular, India and North America) but only where we can add tangible value. We prefer ‘pan-regional’ or ‘multi-market’ businesses with significant ambition. We are comfortable with companies that are capital intensive if their unit economics are viable. We have experience investing in businesses that have global ambitions but may be starting their journey in one of our focus markets.