Singapore's EV Growth closes debut fund at $200m

The fund was launched last year with a target of $150 million. LPs include Pavilion Capital, Indies Capital, and SoftBank Group, the parent company of YJ Capital. The plan is to address a later-stage VC shortfall in Southeast Asia, and in Indonesia in particular.

It extends a spate of fundraising activity targeting the region’s growth-stage technology space from the likes of Gobi Ventures and Golden Gate Ventures, the latter of which has followed a partnering strategy similar to EV by teaming up with Korea’s Hanwha Asset Management. Last month, Jungle Ventures also entered the market with a $175 million first close on a fund seeking $220 million.

EV invests at the Series B stage or later, making industry-agnostic deployments of $5-15 million per deal and sourcing targets in part from the existing East Ventures portfolio. The firm is led by three partners: Willson Cuaca, a managing partner at East; Roderick Purwana, a managing director at SMDV; and Shinichiro Hori, CEO at YJ.

According to a release, 12 deals have been closed to date and the fund is 40% deployed. Of this, 90% has been invested in Indonesia. Standout deals in the country include beauty tech provider Sociolla, multi-platform media player IDN Media, and Warung Pintar, a company that specializes in the digitization of family-owned street stalls and food stands.

Last month, the fund backed a $45 million round for Singapore-based retail rewards platform operator ShopBack, which is also separately backed by SoftBank. The company, which has connected seven million people in seven countries with some 2,000 merchants, has recently entered Australia and opened R&D hubs in Vietnam and Taiwan.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Fundraising
• Growth
• Venture
• Technology
• Singapore
• Sinar Mas Digital Ventures
• YJ Capital
• East Ventures
• Softbank
• Venture
• Growth capital