Singapore's Jungle absorbs healthcare specialist HealthXCapital
Singapore’s Jungle Ventures has ramped up its healthcare investment capacity by combining with local sector specialist HealthXCapital (HXC).
The merger will result in Seemant Jauhari, HXC’s managing partner (pictured), becoming a partner at Jungle. He will lead all the firm’s healthcare investments across India and Southeast Asia. Jauhari, who previously served as CEO of innovation and research at Apollo Hospitals, has 22 years of experience in healthcare investment and technology commercialisation.
“I believe that by converging outside-in perspectives derived from investing across sectors and our nuanced understanding of healthcare, we shall be able to bring forth a unique strategic and operational value add to healthcare start-ups in the region,” Jauhari said in a statement.
Jungle and HXC are longstanding partners. Jungle, along with Apollo Hospitals, is an anchor investor in HXC’s debut fund, which launched in 2018 with a target of USD 25m. The fund also received backing from Eight Roads, Infocom, and Enterprise Singapore.
Jungle and HXC both focus on seed to Series A-stage deals, although the former has the flexibility to write cheques as large as USD 20m. They co-invested as recently as January, supporting a USD 3.1m round for Neurowyzr, a Singapore-based brain health start-up also backed by Peak XV Partners.
HXC was set up in 2017 with a view to exploiting healthcare investment tailwinds related to a rise in non-communicable and lifestyle-related diseases in Asia. Core themes include access and affordability, applicability (leveraging partnerships with the likes of Apollo), and commercialisation.
In the past three years, HXC claims to have engaged with more than 1,200 founders across segments including home care, ambulatory care, insurance, and data sciences.
Standout portfolio companies in India include emergency response company Red Health and clinical data platform THB. Singapore investees include home caregiving platform Homage and surgery operator Medfin.
Jungle raised USD 600m for its fourth sector agnostic fund last year against a target of USD 350m. Fund III closed on USD 240m in 2019, beating a target of USD 150m and more than doubling the size of the previous vintage.
Jungle’s motivation for the HXC merger is grounded in an observation that advances in areas such as diagnostics, personalized medicine, and big data are set to have far-reaching social implications. It noted that although India and Southeast Asia represent almost 30% of the global population, healthcare expenditure in the region constitutes only 4% of GDP.
More on Southeast Asia
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.