Australia's Taronga Ventures launches in Singapore
Taronga Ventures, the venture arm of Australian real estate investment firm Taronga Group, has set up Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore.
Founded in 2015, Taronga Ventures manages the RealTech Ventures Fund, an evergreen investment vehicle that invests in globally scalable technology start-ups targeting enterprise real estate customers. The fund has a target of $100 million.
The firm has invested in more than 10 companies so far with a focus on sustainability, construction technology, mobility, tenant health and wellbeing. It counts several large corporates as strategic partners or financial backers, including US commercial real estate services firm CBRE, German real estate investment manager Patrizia AG, and PGIM Real Estate in the US, as well as local players such as Lendlease, Dexus, and Australian Unity.
Taronga also manages RealTechX, an accelerator program that offers emerging technology businesses in real estate with growth capital and strategic support. Earlier this year, Taronga picked 12 companies for its inaugural cohort. The plan is to match them with strategic players in the global real estate sector.
Jonathan Hannam, a co-founder of Taronga, said the firm decided to set up an office in Singapore to help portfolio companies from the West expand operations in the burgeoning Asia real estate market and introduce them to other investors in the region. US-based Switch Automation, a portfolio company that helps businesses manage commercial properties, recently raised capital from Asian institutional investors in this manner.
“We have been supporting our portfolio and investors with activities across multiple markets in Asia for many years so Singapore is a natural extension to the platform,” Avi Naidu, a managing partner at Taronga Ventures and co-founder of the parent firm, told Singapore business daily Business Times.
Taronga Group, founded in 2013, is led by Hannam, formerly head of capital at Australian property manager Mirvac, and Naidu, a former investment banker with Gresham Partners.
Other firms that invest in real estate-focused ventures in the region include Hong Kong’s Gaw Capital and Malaysia’s Vynn Capital. Some of the recent investments in real estate technology ventures include capital commitments to Vietnamese real estate platform Propzy, capsule hotel operator Bobobox and Singaporean energy management solution provider SensorFlow.
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