Indonesia’s Arise reaches first close on seed fund
Indonesia’s Arise, a seed investor set up by MDI Ventures and financial technology specialist Finch Capital, has reached a first close of unspecified size on its debut fund. The target is $40 million.
LPs include Indonesia-listed family offices, high net worth individuals, and corporates such as Metrodata Electronics.
Finch and MDI, the corporate VC arm of state-controlled Telkom Indonesia, launched Arise in November last year with a view to filling a perceived pre-Series A funding gap. The fund will write checks in a range of $250,000 to $3 million.
MDI and its sister entity Centauri Fund will be positioned to offer Series A and Series B funding to some Arise portfolio companies. In some cases, exits are envisioned to be realized via acquisition by Telkom.
The fund will invest in about 25 Southeast Asian businesses in the next three years. Five deals are expected to close by the end of 2021. It will also offer strategic go-to-market networks and hands-on company-building support via resources spanning Silicon Valley, Europe, South Korea, Singapore, and Indonesia.
Before receiving capital, start-ups will also have an option to enter Telkom’s Indigo Nation incubator, arrive at what they determine to be a repeatable and scalable business model, and then benefit from a broad network of Arise’s corporate LPs and tech ecosystems.
“Despite the significant influx of high-quality founders over the last decade, a disproportionate allocation of capital makes the situation more challenging for promising entrepreneurs to secure investments during the region’s economic slowdown,” Aldi Adrian Hartanto, a partner at Arise, said in a statement.
“Many of these next-generation founders, who often come with experience from established local tech unicorns and centaurs, already know how to grow and scale tech ventures in the local market. But they have yet to really get their names out there and still require further support in accelerating product-market fit, validating ideas, and raising proper series A rounds thereafter.”
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