Singapore's Lighthouse Canton hits first close on venture debt fund
Singapore Lighthouse Canton has reached a first close of USD 20m on its first venture debt fund, which will target Southeast Asia and India. The target is USD 100m.
This is Lighthouse Canton’s second start-up fund launch in the past 12 months. Last year, it hit a first close of USD 30m on its debut early-stage venture capital fund in partnership with India’s Nueva Capital.
The VC fund, known as LC Nueva, is now said to have closed on target at USD 40m. However, Lighthouse Canton also noted that it was oversubscribed and had successfully applied for additional capacity with the regulator.
LC Venture Debt will back 30-40 technology-enabled companies over the next two years with a view to leveraging Lighthouse Canton’s global network to support international expansions. It will provide senior-secured loans with an equity upside at the Series A stage and above with ticket sizes ranging from USD 1m to USD 5m.
The strategy is led by Ankit Agrawal, formerly of the International Finance Corporation, GIC, and Piramal Group, as well as Sanket Sinha, Lighthouse Canton’s global head of asset management. Sinha’s start-up experience includes co-founding WealthPack, an Indian financial technology company that was acquired by Edelweiss in 2016.
“As the pace of venture capital activity continues to grow, it is logical that we would see a rise in venture debt demand,” Sinha said in a statement.
“In more mature venture ecosystems such as the US and Europe, venture debt has risen to 15%-20% of the total VC funding, whereas this proportion is less than 2% in India and Southeast Asia. Given the growth of the venture ecosystem in India, we see tremendous opportunity for venture debt, and we expect the size of this market to grow 3-4x in the next five years.”
Lighthouse Canton is a multi-strategy investor with more than 100 professionals across Singapore, Dubai, and India, and some USD 3bn in assets under management. In addition to making investments, it focuses significantly on personal wealth management services for investee entrepreneurs.
LC Nueva is mandated to invest in 25-30 companies exclusively in India with a sector-agnostic approach and a bias toward technology related to healthcare, consumer, financial services, and education. The portfolio to date includes diagnostics services provider Redcliffe Lifetech, and men’s hygiene company Svish.
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