Temasek, GDP, Mistletoe in fresh round for Singapore's Garena
Singapore-headquartered mobile internet and gaming platform Garena has raised a fresh round of funding from a unit of Temasek Holdings, Indonesia's Global Digital Prima (GDP) Venture, and Japanese impact investor Mistletoe.
The size of the funding round and the valuation were not disclosed. Taizo Son, the founder, president and CEO of Mistletoe, will join Garena's advisory board, along with Archana Parekh, a portfolio manager at SeaTown Holdings International, a semi-autonomous unit of Temasek. Garena will use the new capital to support its regional expansion plans.
Founded in 2009, Garena aims to build a regional internet platform for Southeast Asia similar to Google and China's Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings. Its strategy emphasizes three pillars: digital content, e-commerce and online payment. Online gaming provided the company with its initial customer base, with Garena later capitalizing on its existing users to introduce online market place and payment platform AirPay.
"Garena has built three exceptional businesses with strong strategic and operational synergies between them," said Martin Hartono, founder of GDP Venture, in a statement. "Garena is already the leading interactive digital content and e-sports platform in the region, and we have a high degree of conviction that Shopee and AirPay will quickly emerge as the clear regional market leaders in their respective categories."
Garena has raised more than $500 million across several rounds of funding, including a $170 million Series D round earlier this year led by Khazanah Nasional, an investment fund controlled by the Malaysian government. At the time the company's valuation was reported to be more than $3.75 billion.
Backers of Garena include Tencent - which has supported Garena since its Series A round - Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, General Atlantic and Tovio Annus.
GDP was founded in 2010 and invests in digital media, e-commerce and online social communities in Indonesia's consumer internet industry, with the goal of helping to create a healthy technological ecosystem in the country. SeaTown, which launched in 2009, invests globally with an eye to absolute returns. Its portfolio companies include Chinese warehouse developer Shanghai Yupei Group and NN Group, the insurance unit of Dutch lender ING Group.
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