East closes $550m in early-stage and growth funds

The growth vehicle, which closed on USD 400m, is the firm's second under this strategy. The early-stage fund of USD 150m is described as the ninth to date. East said the re-up rate from existing LPs was 120%. Historically, investors have included the likes of Adams Street Partners, Sinar Mas Group, and Temasek Holdings-owned Pavilion Capital.

Traditionally a seed investor, East expanded into later stages in 2018 via a joint venture with Sinar Mas Digital Ventures (SMDV) and Japan’s YJ Capital, now known as Z Venture Capital (ZVC). The entity, EV Growth, closed its first fund on USD 250m in 2019, beating an initial target of USD 150m with support from SoftBank Group, the owner of ZVC parent Z Holdings.

The co-GP structure of EV Growth was dissolved last year, with East assuming full control and absorbing much of the staff, including Roderick Purwana, a managing partner at SMDV. Shinichiro Hiro, CEO of ZVC and a managing partner at Z Holdings, remained on as part of the program’s investment committee. Z Holdings is also an LP in the latest growth fundraise.

East has been active in seed investment since its inception in 2009. Its last confirmed fundraising activity under this strategy came in 2020 with a first close of USD 57m for a vehicle styled as Fund VIII targeting USD 88m. Assets under management are now said to exceed USD 1bn with more than 200 companies invested to date across seed and growth strategies.

Last year alone, East made more than 80 investments and claimed to have capacity to close 1-2 deals a week. This coincided with a significant build-out of leadership, with recent hires including Wai Kit Koh, one of the founders of Pavilion, who joined as a venture partner in early 2021 and was promoted to managing partner last month.

Target sectors cover education and healthcare technology, e-commerce, logistics, retail, and financial technology, including blockchain. Standout portfolio companies have included Traveloka, Tokopedia, Grab, and Gojek. In most cases, East was one of the first investors in these companies. The geographic remit spans Southeast Asia, although there is a strong focus on Indonesia.

“We are very bullish about Indonesia yet mindful of the global market condition. We have built a strong return track record for more than a decade, and as the ecosystem flywheel effect kicks in, East Ventures is well-positioned to ride on it,” Willson Cuaca, a co-founder and managing partner at East, said in a statement.

“We have been transforming ourselves from a seed-stage investor into a multi-stage investor and into becoming an efficient and robust platform to support entrepreneurship.”

East has recently made a feature of its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) credentials, becoming the first VC firm in Indonesia to sign the UN’s Principles of Responsible Investment in March. The team is 52% women, including 33% of investing partners, and 25% of the active portfolio has at least one female founder. Last month, it released its inaugural sustainability report.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• GPs
• Fundraising
• Venture
• Technology
• Indonesia
• East Ventures
• seed
• Growth capital