Singapore's Jungle increases target for Fund III

The change, confirmed in a regulatory filing, comes five months after the International Finance Corporation (IFC) indicated interest in contributing $5 million to the original target. The fund will make Series A and B investments across sectors including consumer internet, financial technology, and B2B digitization services for small and medium-sized enterprises.

"As large markets like US, China and India play the nationalist agenda Southeast Asia is emerging as a safe haven for companies and investors looking for growth," Amit Anand, a managing partner at Jungle told AVCJ in October. "The region is not only the third most populous region in the world but one of the fastest growing digital economies. This is on the back of some 340 million young consumers that are hungry for global products and services and governments that are entrepreneur and business friendly."

Jungle's second fund closed in late 2016 at $100 million with commitments from IFC, Temasek Holdings, Singapore's National Research Foundation (NRF), Hubert Burda Media, and Thakral, as well as family offices Kewalram Chanrai Group and Khoon Hong Kuok. The firm was set up in 2012 with a $10 million angel fund backed by NRF. It closed a seed fund at $18 million last year.

Investor outlooks for Southeast Asia have been complicated by a sense that valuations are growing rapidly ahead of a widely-expected global correction, especially in the region's technology start-up space. "To my surprise Southeast Asia still has the least competitive intensity on all fronts," Anand added. "Maybe it's the culture, but the number of start-ups and capital in the market, albeit growing exponentially, is still not comparable to the market opportunity."

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Technology
• Fundraising
• Venture
• Singapore
• Jungle Ventures
• Venture
• TMT