Asia Partners targets $600m for second Southeast Asia fund
Asia Partners, a Singapore-based private equity firm focused on growth-stage technology investments, is targeting USD 600m for its second fund.
Mergermarket, AVCJ's sister title, was informed of the development by four sources familiar with the situation.
A fund data room opened in March of this year and a first close of around USD 350m came at the end of the following month, the first source said. Existing LPs accounted for all the commitments. Asia Partners also submitted a filing to US regulators regarding Fund II in April.
Asia Partners is led by Nick Nash and Oliver Rippel. Nash was head of Southeast Asia at General Atlantic until 2014 when he became group president of Garena, a consumer internet platform and a General Atlantic portfolio company. Nash departed in 2018, 14 months after the company, which rebranded as Sea, listed in the US.
Asia Partners was launched the following year by Nash, Rippel, and four other co-founders. Nash is the managing partner. Rippel, who was previously CEO of B2C e-commerce at Naspers, where he led investments in the likes of Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart, is a partner.
The new fund will focus on growth-stage investments in Southeast Asia-based technology companies in areas such as e-commerce, the sources said.
Asia Partners closed its debut fund in March 2021 on USD 384m after about two years in the market. LPs included institutional investors, family offices, corporations, and high-net-worth individuals, as well as development finance institutions like the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and Germany's DEG. About 7% of the corpus came from the GP’s co-founders and advisory board.
Fund I is now at least 70% deployed and Asia Partners has already begun deploying Fund II, the second source said.
Asia Partners typically enters Series B and Series C funding rounds, writing equity cheques of USD 20m-USD 50m, with a view to supporting companies through IPO. Nash has previously said he sees a gap in growth-stage VC created in part by a less intuitive risk-reward equation.
“There is a unique degree of conviction required to write a USD30m-USD 40m cheque. Behavioural economics tilts people subtly away from growth equity, but the data tell a different story,” he told AVCJ after closing Fund I.
In June, Asia Partners was the lead investor in a USD 80m Series F round for Singapore-based shopping and rewards platform operator ShopBack.
Other portfolio companies include Singapore-based online healthcare services provider Doctor Anywhere, e-commerce services provider SCI Ecommerce, and budget hotel chain RedDoorz, Indonesian B2B marketplace GudangAda, Malaysian automotive marketplace Carsome, and Hong Kong-headquartered online learning website operator Snapask.
Asia Partners did not respond to requests seeking comment. Monument Group, which is serving as the placement agent for Fund II, declined to comment.
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