Southeast Asia's Go-Ventures rebrands, raises $240m

Argor was established as Go-Ventures in 2018 with the backing of GoTo, then known as Gojek prior to its merger with Tokopedia. It describes itself as “independent but ecosystem-linked” with its parent company. The rebrand aims to reinforce this independence without severing network connections.

The USD 240m raised represents a final close for the GP’s second flagship fund, including some related separately managed vehicles of unspecified size and status. LPs in Fund II include GoTo, sovereign wealth funds, institutional investors, corporates, and family offices representing Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, and the US.

The firm closed its first flagship venture fund in 2020 on USD 175m. The fund invested in 19 companies across Southeast Asia, with opportunistic forays into India and Africa. Those companies have gone on to raise USD 1.4bn in follow-on funding.

Standout investees include India’s Mobile Premier League, a gaming platform valued at USD 2.3bn as of its USD 150m Series E round in 2021. There is also Indonesian aquaculture technology start-up eFishery, which raised USD 108m last month, Indonesian personal finance app Pluang, and Indian cloud kitchen player Rebel Foods.

“The common thread running through all of our investments is that they are helmed by founders looking to solve big problems in big markets and with whom we generally have built a relationship of trust and partnership for several years prior to our investment,” Aditya Kamath, a partner at Argor, said in a statement.

“We remain sector agnostic, focusing on a limited number of high-conviction investments that provide returns for our investors while transforming people's lives in Southeast Asia”.

Kamath, who also served as CEO of the first fund, joined Argor from Northstar Group, one of Gojek’s earliest backers. His fellow partners include Siddharth Pisharody, previously of Temasek Holdings; Adrian Foo, previously of GIC; and Aditya Kumar, also formerly of Northstar and Advent International.

The team is said to have increased in size threefold in the past two years, with new talent coming into areas such as technology, product, data science, talent and marketing.

Argor described its new name as a combination of “ardor” and “rigor” that also incorporated the word “go” to acknowledge its origins. “It captures the passion and spirit of partnership that our team employs as we invest in and helps our portfolio companies across Southeast Asia change millions of lives for the better,” Kamath added.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Fundraising
• Venture
• GPs
• Indonesia
• Go-Jek
• Fundraising