Golden Gate closes SE Asia VC fund at $100m
Golden Gate Ventures has closed its third Southeast Asia-focused fund at $100 million. Like its predecessors, the oversubscribed fund will invest in start-ups using technology to disrupt traditional business models in the consumer sector.
Existing investors, including Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and EE Capital, and Korea-based Hanwha Life Insurance and Naver, accounted for half of the Fund III corpus, according to Golden Gate co-founder Vinnie Lauria. Korea Venture Investment Corporation (KVIC), Singapore’s Ion Pacific, and Japanese impact investor Mistletoe are among the newcomers.
The fundraise was significantly faster than the previous fund, which launched in 2014 and closed in June 2016 at $60 million. By comparison, Fund III reached a first close of $65 million in July after five months in the market. While LPs from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan accounted for the bulk of the new fund’s corpus, as with Golden Gate’s previous vehicles, though Lauria said he has seen growing interest by US institutional investors in Golden Gate and Southeast Asia VC in general.
Lauria launched Golden Gate in 2010 alongside Jeffrey Paine and Paul Bragiel. The three investors had extensive experience with start-ups – Lauria and Bragiel were both serial entrepreneurs and Paine had formed the local branch of global start-up accelerator The Founder Institute – and saw an opening in Southeast Asia for an investor that could provide both financial backing and mentoring to the region’s fledgling technology entrepreneurial community.
The firm closed its first fund in 2012 with $10 million in commitments, mostly from a consortium of angel investors that knew Lauria and Bragiel. Golden Gate reported the distributions to paid-in (DPI) of its first and second funds at 1.56x and 0.13x, respectively. Its exits include online grocer Redmart, sold to Lazada in 2016, and payment platform Ruma, acquired by Go-Jek earlier this year.
The firm invests at the Series A stage in Southeast Asian start-ups in the consumer internet and mobile technology space. Current portfolio companies include Singapore mobile classifieds app Carousell, car marketplace operator Carro, and Indonesian healthcare information portal Alodokter.
Golden Gate also recently launched a cryptocurrency and blockchain-focused fund in partnership with LuneX Ventures, a new firm established by Golden Gate’s former head of growth. The vehicle has a target of $10 million and will invest globally in start-ups that can drive broader adoption of blockchain technology.
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