Alpha JWC Ventures, a Southeast Asia-focused fund focusing on Indonesian startups, has raised US$433 million in its third fund, which was oversubscribed.
The fund was backed by international and regional investors, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank and Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners.
The VC firm is considering a wider range of investment opportunities in the region through Fund III.
“With this larger fund, we’ll be able to double down on our efforts to support our founders as they build scalable and sustainable businesses in Indonesia and the region,” said Jefrey Joe, co-founder, and general partner.
Alpha JWC will extend its multi-stage funding to up to US$60 million, focusing on fintech, direct-to-consumer brands, SaaS, and B2B services.
In Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam, the third fund has already invested in seven fintech, SaaS, and SME solutions firms.
While its major emphasis remains on Indonesian entrepreneurs and founders, it has grown its regional footprint over the last five years with investments in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines.
Alpha JWC was founded in 2016 with a $50 million fund that invested in 23 Southeast Asian early-stage firms. The second fund, which concluded in 2019 with a total of US $143 million, funded 30 startups.
In 2021, its portfolio firms raised more than $1 billion in total capital. Three of its firms have become unicorns this year: Kredivo, a buy-now-pay-later company, Carro, an automobile marketplace, and Ajaib, an online brokerage platform.
Coffee chain Kopi Kenangan, B2B marketplace GudangAda, healthy consumer products company Lemonilo, and P2P platform Funding Societies are among the fund’s other investors.
DealStreetAsia (acquired by Nikkei), regional co-working space network Spacemob (purchased by WeWork), and Vietnamese enterprise SaaS Base.vn are among the firm’s nine exits (bought by FPT Corporation).
The assets under management (AUM) of Alpha JWC’s three funds are roughly US $630 million. Fund III will focus on early-stage and growth investments in Indonesia’s and Southeast Asia’s burgeoning technology ecosystems.
Kim-See Lim, IFC regional director for East Asia and the Pacific said: “IFC’s partnership with Alpha JWC Ventures underscores our long-term commitment to Indonesia’s economic development and digital transformation. Alpha JWC’s focus on innovative technology-enabled businesses is key, as these investments help enable long-term development and have the power to transform lives.”
Erika Go, the partner, Alpha JWC Ventures, said: With our portfolio companies, we have touched the lives of almost one million MSMEs through financial inclusion and market access and created more than 12,000 value-adding jobs. We have also empowered more than 200,000 women by creating opportunities to improve their family welfare, inspired more than one million new retail investors, and many more. And this is not the end but just the beginning of the journey.”
