Facebook co-founder's VC firm in first close on US-Asia fund - update

B Capital Fund has so far received $143.6 million in commitments from 18 LPs, according to a US regulatory filing. AVCJ understands that the capital was primarily raised from investors in the founders' personal networks as well as from the firm's sponsor LPs, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and BCG Digital Ventures. The latter is BCG's incubation arm.

Founded in 2015, B Capital has offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Singapore and focuses on start-ups that are ready to scale globally. Target industries include consumer and e-commerce, financial services, health and wellness and travel and transportion.

The firm has already made two investments. It has backed Evidation Health, a US-based digital healthcare analytics specialist, and Ninja Van, a Singapore last mile logistics providers which closed a $30 million Series B round earlier this year. It was led by The Abraaj Group, with B Capital participating alongside JY Capital and existing investor Monk's Hill Ventures.

Ganguly offered further insight into the firm's strategy in a LinkedIn post published on May 19. He focuses on India and Southeast Asia, noting that these are the regions where B Capital sees the biggest white spaces in the VC ecosystem in terms of the availability of capital at different stages, the presence of institutional investors, the amount of start-up talent, and the number of exits.

The most significant potential funding gap lies in growth stage rounds, Ganguly observes, particularly the Series B and C stages when companies are trying to evolve from proving product-market fit to achieving scale. Most VC investments, especially in Southeast Asia, focus on early stages.

"We view ourselves as hyperlocal venture capitalists who can provide companies with both trusted local expertise/advice and a truly global network for vertical and horizontal business acceleration," Ganguly says. "While experienced VC advice is more readily available in developed markets, such value add is still largely missing and much needed in emerging markets. We have heard this on a constant basis from the many entrepreneurs we meet and work with in Asia."

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• North America
• Venture
• Fundraising
• GPs
• Singapore
• USA
• TMT
• B Capital