Fund focus: Venturra taps experience for SE Asia start-ups

Southeast Asia has proven fertile soil for internet start-ups, with a wide range of locally launched ventures - but the still-nascent VC scene has so far provided relatively little support for these businesses. The recently launched Venturra Capital aims to change that trend.

Having closed its first fund at $150 million this month, the GP plans to bring its unique background to bear in helping Series A and B stage companies expand across Southeast Asia.

Venturra has a distinctive pedigree thanks to its ties to Lippo Group. Not only is Lippo the new fund's largest LP, but two of the three managing partners have connections to the company: Rudy Ramawy, formerly managing partner of Lippo Digital Ventures (LDV) and country director of Google Indonesia, and John Riady, director of the Lippo Group. In addition, Venturra has taken on the existing portfolio of LDV, giving it a sizable network right out of the gate.

Despite these connections, the founders stress that Lippo has no more emphasis than any other LP. "It is an advantage that we already have a portfolio," says Stefan Jung, former partner at Monk's Hill Ventures and the third managing partner of Venturra. "We can bring the founders together, they can exchange best practices, and they can learn from each other."

LDV's 10 portfolio companies include Bridestory, an Indonesia-based online wedding marketplace that the firm backed in March 2015. Another of Jung's former firms, Rocket Internet, led that round; Jung set up Rocket's Southeast Asia e-commerce platforms Lazada and Zalora.

Venturra's management team points to this investment and entrepreneurial experience as a distinguishing factor from competing GPs. Another is that a significant portion of the fund is set aside for follow-on investments, a relatively uncommon approach in Southeast Asia that allows for quick, strategic capital deployments.

"It's our strategy to not just provide seed or Series A capital, but also follow on with the Series B," says Ramawy. "We can work with a start-up so it gets to scale rapidly, enters the next stage as quickly as possible, and give it the extra runway without having to shop around for another set of investors."

Even with this follow-on portion reserved, the large fund size and small expected commitments - $2-5 million is planned on average - allow for considerable flexibility in choice of investments. Venturra plans to invest in a broad range of technology companies that seek to overcome the challenges presented by Southeast Asia's varied geography.

"Indonesia represents a huge opportunity for technology-powered companies, precisely because there are a lot more inefficiencies and a lot more pain points they can solve," says Ramawy. "My experience has always been to build companies that have nationwide distribution in Indonesia, and Stefan has been able to see different companies scale at different rates across Southeast Asia. And then access to the Lippo network gives us a unique advantage."

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• Topics
• Venture
• Fundraising
• Technology
• Southeast Asia
• Fundraising
• TMT
• Southeast Asia
• Venture
• Venturra Partners