Singapore's Golden Gate Ventures eyes Series A fund

Last February, Golden Gate co-founder Vinnnie Lauria told AVCJ that he thought there had been a deficit in Series A funding in young Asian tech companies. "Asia is a maturing market so a lot of the money available has been at the seed stage," he said. "Once portfolio companies need to do a Series A round there aren't a lot of people to turn to."

Lauria set up Golden Gate with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Paul Bragiel and Jeffrey Paine in 2011. It has offices both in California and Singapore.

Its $10 million maiden fund reached a final close last year and makes investments ranging from $50,000 to $500,000. The bulk of its LP commitments came from angel investors in the Silicon Valley and Asia, especially Japan.

So far it has made three investments in the Southeast Asia: TradeGecko, RedMart and Coda Payments. All three companies are in the e-commerce sector, providing services relating to payments or logisitics. 

Golden Gate  has also formed a strategic alliance with JFDI.Asia supporting early-stage digital start-ups in Asia as they move from concept to pre-Series A funding through a "bootcamp" program. Those businesses with sufficient traction are fast-tracked to additional funding of up to $600,000.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Technology
• Fundraising
• Early-stage
• Venture
• Technology
• Singapore
• Venture
• TMT
• Fund formation