Southeast Asia's Openspace seeks $650m for latest vintage

The fundraising process was launched in the past week, according to two sources close to the situation, although certain investors were granted early access to the data room. Openspace declined to comment on fundraising.

It coincides with a difficult time for venture capital globally as corrections in listed technology stocks led to questions about private market valuations and the ability of start-ups to raise additional capital. However, the first source noted that sentiment in Southeast Asia, having reached an unprecedented low towards the end of last year, appears to be improving.

Venture capital fundraising for the sub-region reached a record high of USD 3.5bn last year, according to AVCJ Research. Three-quarters of the total was raised in the first six months.

There were sizeable closes by the likes of Sequoia Capital, which raised USD 850m for its debut Southeast Asia fund, Jungle Ventures, which secured USD 600m for a Southeast Asia-India mandate, and East Ventures, which secured USD 550m for early and growth-stage vehicles. All three announced their final closes in the first half of the year.

Openspace was also active, closing its debut growth fund on target at USD 200m in the first quarter of 2022. The vehicle – known as OSV+ - primarily participates in follow-on rounds for existing portfolio companies, entering at the Series C and D stages, while Openspace’s core venture vehicle concentrates on Series A and B rounds.

The most recent venture fund closed on USD 200m in 2021. The firm, which was founded in 2014 by Shane Chesson and Hian Goh, has been consistent in its fundraising strategy to date. It returns to market every three years and increases the target size by around 50% each time: USD 89m for Fund I, USD 135m for Fund II, and USD 200m for Fund III.

Fund III LPs include Temasek Holdings, StepStone Group, Sofina, San Diego City Employees Retirement System (SDCERS), Duke University, DEG, Norfund, 57 Stars, and Mizuho Financial Group.

Fund I has generated distributions to paid-in (DPI) of 1.3x, the first source said. There have been two full exits – cloud services start-up Whispir and online inventory and order management platform TradeGecko – and numerous partial exits. The partial exits include Indonesian ride-hailing and local services behemoth GoTo, which went public in Jakarta last year.

Fund I IRR was previously above 44% but it has since slipped to 34%, reflecting the drop in GoTo’s share price post-IPO and valuation markdowns of privately held companies.

Fund II recently made its first distribution and has a similar IRR to its predecessor, the source added. The key value driver is Biofourmis, a Singapore-founded and now US-based health analytics platform operator. It achieved unicorn status on closing a USD 300m Series D round led by General Atlantic last April. Openspace first invested in the Series A and is sitting on an unrealised gain of about 10x.

Openspace’s strategy has evolved from being largely consumer internet to encompass financial services, agriculture, education, healthcare, and software-as-a-service (SaaS). The team now numbers more than 40 and works out of offices in Singapore, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, and Ho Chi Minh City.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Venture
• Fundraising
• Technology
• GPs
• Openspace Ventures
• Fundraising
• Singapore