Cocoon Capital launches in Singapore with $7m seed fund

The firm will support business-to-business (B2B), business-to-customer (B2C), software-as-a-service (SaaS), e-commerce and financial technology companies, with deployments of up to S$1 million. According to a statement, companies will also benefit from a global network of 28 family offices and about 30 investors, including leadership at online retailer Zalora, the Singapore Angel Network and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

The fund aims pan to invest in no more than five founding teams and their companies per year. This is expected to allow enough time and resources to promote development through an intensive business support and mentorship program.

"We don't only coach founders on how to build solid business models, but on how to become good managers and build strong teams, too," Klippgen said. "These are often overlooked aspects of building a successful company. We also want to proactively help founders avoid common early-stage pitfalls instead of troubleshooting afterwards."

Founding teams will be able to tap into the Cocoon network even before an investment is made. This approach is intended to enable a seamless transition to post-investment support whereby entrepreneurs will be able to access potential customers, talent and local investors for subsequent rounds of post-internationalization funding.

"We created Cocoon Capital to turn local start-ups into successful global businesses and founders into CEOs," Blakey added. "We will achieve this by providing business support first, then financing - not the other way around."

Blakey and Klippgen met each other as mentors at technology start-up accelerator JFDI Asia in Singapore in 2013. Over a span of 24 months afterwards, the two co-invested in four companies, including PropertyGuru, a Singapore-based real estate portal which last year purchased Indonesian counterpart RumahDijual.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• South Asia
• Technology
• Fundraising
• Singapore
• India
• seed