Gobi reaps 60% IRR on CIB trade sale

China and Singapore-based Gobi held a 61.7% stake in CIB in conjunction with a consortium of angel investors. This was sold to Asiasoft for SGD11 million ($8.7 million).

Gobi invested into CIB via its Singapore fund last year, and assisted the company in courting trade buyers and preparing for an IPO on the Malaysian ACE market.

"We have been on the lookout for promising regional companies in Southeast Asia that can leverage on our prior experience in the Chinese IT and digital media sectors and found that in CIB," said Gobi Singapore Partner KU Kay Mok. "Gobi's deep relationships with online game operators probably accelerated the move to take an interest in CIB's valuable expertise and networks before others did."

CIB was founded by current Managing Director Alan Ku in 2003. Today, it has various game genres in its interactive online game portfolio, ranging from shooting games, dancing games and cartoon-based games, to martial arts novel-based games.

Gobi's LPs will no doubt be relieved this exit generated such promising returns, as a source close to Gobi recently told AVCJ that the LPs were  experiencing significant delays in receiving the proceeds from the VC firm's investment in China's Digital Media Group (DMG).

Both Gobi and its co-investor, Oak Investment Partners, have been locked into a dispute for more than a year with VisionChina, the media company which acquired DMG from them in 2009. "Gobi's LPs - who include college endowments, pension funds, charity foundations - are suffering, as this money is supposed to be distributed back to them," said AVCJ's source. "They need it for their budgets and they can't get it."

The litigation between VisionChina and the venture firms began in December 2010, when the Chinese company accused the vendors of fraud - a claim which the courts later threw out.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Exits
• Southeast Asia
• Consumer
• Trade sale
• Malaysia
• Consumer
• Gobi Partners