Indies reaches first close on SE Asia tech secondaries fund

The Singapore-based GP said timing was optimal to exploit an emerging exit market for the ASEAN ecosystem's first wave of unicorns. It claimed to provide an above-market contribution to the first close and described the response from its existing investor base as “overwhelming.” Names of LPs were not disclosed.

Indies raised $100 million last year for its third flagship private equity and credit fund with Pavilion Capital, a unit of Temasek Holdings as the anchor investor. The existing LP base for this series of funds includes institutional investors, corporates, and family offices.

The new vehicle, Indies Strategic Technology Fund II, is a successor to Indies Pelago Investments, which closed at $73 million in 2019 and is now fully deployed. Pelago’s portfolio features eight unicorns, three of which are said to be valued in excess of $10 billion.

Recent investments include Thailand-based e-commerce enablement platform aCommerce, which is currently preparing for a domestic IPO.

Fund II will follow the same strategy, pursuing late-stage secondary investments in leading Southeast Asian technology start-ups with a view to offering LPs diversified exposure to the asset class at attractive valuations and a shorter exit horizon. Indies describes the two funds as the first of their kind in the region.

Growth-stage investment in Southeast Asia has been spurred by a revitalization in exit expectations. The region has been energized by an impending US listing for ride-hailing player Grab via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and expected domestic offerings by Indonesia’s GoTo and Bukalapak.

"Despite the leaps in the development of the ecosystem in the past few years, secondary share sales in Southeast Asia remain hugely disorganized,” Harold Ong, a partner at Indies, said in a statement.

“Given our investment lineage in special situations and growth equity, we identified a latent opportunity and started deploying into this strategy five years ago to address the unmet needs for intermediate liquidity in Southeast Asia. The region has seen unprecedented growth in early-to-mid stage funding in the last few years, and we think this will pave the way for the formation of a robust supply of investable companies.”

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Fundraising
• Secondaries
• Technology
• Singapore