Sinarmas takes Ardent cross-border

Last week, the firm received $12.5 million in funding, 90% of which was provided by Indonesian conglomerate Sinarmas. It follows a $4.5 million round - Ardent's first external funding - last year.

"We realized last year that Indonesia will be a key growth market in Southeast Asia in terms of population size and investment opportunities," says Adrian Vanzyl, Ardent's CEO. "We met Sinarmas through aCommerce and we know each other well. We think that they can help us expand into the country."

ACommerce is a logistics provider launched by Ardent Labs, which operates much like a VC accelerator. In June it received $10.7 million in Series A funding led by Inspire Ventures. Sinarmas also took part.

While Ardent has a VC business that backs existing start-ups, the Labs division tests promising business ideas and seeds them with a few thousand dollars. Once the nascent company starts acquiring customers, it receives $500,000; and then a further $1-2 million before the Series A round, which includes outside investors, kicks in.

"We always build companies big enough to raise a scalable Series A round," says Vanzyl. "Acommerce is a good example. Its latest round was one of the largest Series A ever seen in Southeast Asia."

Ardent intends to use the same methodology to launch Indonesia-based start-ups and then help them expand into Thailand. Investments will be made across four areas: sourcing and management, fulfillment and logistics, retail, and customer acquisition. These four areas comprise what Ardent refers to as an "e-commerce stack."

With Sinarmas on board as a strategic investor, Ardent is expected to leverage the conglomerate's existing resources in industries that span agribusiness, pulp and paper, real estate, telecom and financial services. The VC firm will also open a new office in a five-floor building owned by Sinarmas and hire about 20 employees.

Ardent differs from traditional venture capital firms in that it doesn't raise funds to make investments. Rather, it operates under a holding company model, similar to Germany-based Rocket Internet. Ardent holds 100% of every company it founds and generates returns through trade sale or IPO exits. Investors in the holding company - like Sinarmas - receive proceeds based on their individual holdings.

"Compared to traditional VC firms, our model is much more capital efficient but it's also much higher risk. We make bigger bets on fewer companies, which means we really have to support and guide them to be successful," says Vanzyl.

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• Topics
• Expansion
• Venture
• Southeast Asia
• Southeast Asia
• Ardent Capital
• Growth capital
• Venture