Singapore's Vulpes launches COVID-19 opportunities fund

Vulpes has teamed up with Jani Rautiainen, co-founder of Southeast Asia-focused real estate portal PropertyGuru, on the initiative. PropertyGuru is a portfolio company of Vulpes’ VC business.

Vulpes said the current loss of appetite for start-up investment due to COVID-19 represented a similar opportunity to the global financial crisis in 2008, when the firm seeded PropertyGuru despite a general lack of interest from other VCs. Vulpes claims it has generated a 70x return on PropertyGuru, which is now considered a category leader with a valuation in excess of $835 million despite a failed IPO attempt in Australia last year. 

This history has fostered a strong working relationship between Vulpes and Rautiainen as well as his fellow co-founder Steve Melhuish. Notably, Rautiainen joined Vulpes last year as an LP in the second seed fund of Singapore’s Cocoon Capital. Rautiainen and Melhuish have also been independently active in the local VC space.

The launch of the Vulpes Special Opportunities Fund will see Rautiainen take on the role of venture partner. The investment committee will also include Hugh Bickerstaff, who until April this year served as CIO of Investible, a Sydney-based VC firm that was an early backer of Australian graphic design unicorn Canva. The team is currently evaluating a pipeline navigating challenges around a hesitancy among VCs to back founders they have not yet met in person. It hopes to realize about 10 deals in its first 12 months.

“Our plan is to invest alongside leading venture investors as they support their existing portfolio companies and are looking for additional funding to close out a funding round,” Field Pickering, head of venture investing at Vulpes, said in a statement. “We think we can quickly build an attractive portfolio of 10 or more companies at attractive valuations if we are prepared to invest now, and prepared to invest in founders we have not met face to face, while other investors in traditional venture funds try and wait for the storm to pass.”

Singapore has seen significant traction in VC fundraising specifically with the intent of supporting companies struggling with COVID-19. TNB Aura was an early mover in April when it launched an open-ended special situations vehicle planned to function as a sidecar to its second flagship fund. Earlier this week, Seeds Capital and EDBI committed about $200 million to a COVID-19 special situations fund that will invest in selected start-ups on a matching one-to-one basis with private sector co-investors.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Fundraising
• GPs
• Venture
• People
• Singapore
• Special Situations
• covid-19
• coronavirus
• Appointments