Venturra leads $12m round for Malaysia's KFit

Existing investors Sequoia Capital and 500 Startups participated in the funding round, along with newcomers SIG and Axiata Digital Innovation Fund. The capital will be used to expand into new cities and to add more gyms to KFit's platform, according to a Bloomberg report linked from KFit's Twitter page.

KFit launched last May with an undisclosed amount of seed funding, which was followed by a $3.25 million round from Sequoia in July. The app gives users access to fitness facilities and classes in their area, through the company's local partners. Members gain unlimited access to facilities for a monthly fee paid to KFit.

The company has expanded from 1,000 partners at the time of its last funding round to about 4,500 today, and has entered the South Korea, New Zealand and the Philippines markets as well. Its service is similar to US-based ClassPass, but KFit has an added emphasis on encouraging and increasing exercise in order to improve awareness of the importance of fitness in the Asia-Pacific region.

Venturra launched last October with a $150 million debut fund, taking over the portfolio of the tech-focused Lippo Digital Ventures, whose former managing partner Rudy Ramawy is now one of Venturra's three managing partners. The firm's largest LP is the Lippo Group, whose director John Riady is another managing partner at Venturra.

The firm said it had already made 10 investments in Southeast Asian technology start-ups at the time of its launch. Since then it has led a $4 million Series A round for Malaysian local services marketplace Kaodim and invested an undisclosed amount in Singapore-based bitcoin start-up BitX.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Consumer
• Technology
• Expansion
• Early-stage
• Venture
• Malaysia
• Venturra Partners
• Sequoia Capital
• Consumer
• Technology
• TMT
• Growth capital
• Venture
• Southeast Asia