Malaysia's Sunway launches $50m VC fund

The fund, known as Sun SEA Capital, has received an initial $5 million commitment from the parent company. The plan is to accelerate Sunway’s digitization and consolidate its geographic footprint through investments in technology start-ups across Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan.

Ticket sizes will range from $1-3 million. Focus segments include online-to-offline convergence, enterprise services, logistics, digital media and entertainment, internet-of-things, artificial intelligence, financial technology, blockchain, and digital health.

Sun SEA Capital will be led by Kuan Hsu, a former investment professional at Gree Ventures and Temasek Holdings, as well as Koichi Saito, a former director at IMJ Investment, now known as Spiral Ventures. Hsu and Saito are currently the co-founders and general partners of KK Fund, a Singapore-based seed-stage investor focused on internet and mobile technologies.

“We were pleasantly surprised with Sunway’s corporate culture,” Saito said in a statement. “From the top management, down to the working teams, Sunway’s will to embrace digitalization is clearly evident. They have a very open mindset and have already been working and investing in start-ups.”

Sunway was established in 1974 and now claims an employee base of 15,000 across 50 locations globally. In addition to property and construction, the group focuses on areas including education, healthcare, leisure, manufacturing, and quarrying. Its digitization agenda was supported last year by the creation of an incubation and acceleration program known as Sunway Innovation Lab.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Technology
• Venture
• Fundraising
• Malaysia
• Logistics
• Media
• Financial Services
• healthcare
• TMT