Temasek's Seatown targets mass affluent with latest fund
Seatown Holdings International, an affiliate of Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, will welcome commitments as small as USD 100,000 from mass affluent investors in its latest fund.
Temasek and Seatown – a diversified alternatives manager that has backed regional VC darlings such as GoTo, Sea, and Carsome – have committed a combined USD 1bn to the fund. A further USD 200-300m allocation has been earmarked for mass affluent investors.
It extends a trend of increased targeting of high net worth individual (HNWIs) by private equity as a way of broadening investor bases. Technology platforms have proven indispensable in making this work by solving challenges around minimum thresholds, network connections, data access, and paperwork, among other issues.
HWNI contributions to private equity are growing faster in Asia than anywhere else, with the region set to account for 37% of global commitments by 2025, up from 26% in 2020, according to Boston Consulting Group and iCapital Network.
Temasek has proven a leader in this area through Azalea Asset Management, which has completed several structured secondary transactions and raised two fund-of-funds. They are designed to be accessible to the HNWI segment. The most recent fund-of-funds closed in January on USD 805m.
Seatown is leveraging technology provided by local vendor Kristal to fractionalise the minimum investment quantum in the new fund, which will make growth equity investments globally with a focus on Asia. It is being touted as presenting private investors with unique access to Temasek’s and Seatown’s deal flow.
“We have seen rapidly rising demand for private equity and private market products in recent years. This used to be an exclusive space for institutional investors, but now technology and platforms have enabled individual investors to participate in such deals as well,” Vivek Mohindra, co-founder of Krista, said in a statement.
Kristal claims its product suite covers more than 200 funds, including PE and VC funds, and provides individuals investors with access to pre-IPO deals among other opportunities. It is a portfolio holding of India’s Chiratae Ventures, which led a USD 6m round for the company in 2020.
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