With the addition of investment holding company Allianz Malaysia as a limited partner, venture capital firm Gobi Partners has closed its US $10 million Gobi SuperSeed II Fund, which had been focused on Malaysia.
Allianz Malaysia’s first investment in a VC firm was made through this arrangement. However, the Gobi SuperSeed II Fund’s general insurance division was an early investor in the insurtech company PolicyStreet and the online rental platform Speedhome.
Other limited partners in the fund, which targets early-stage tech businesses in Malaysia, are Sunway Group and Malaysia Venture Capital Management. Startups active in the fields of artificial intelligence, big data, the cloud, e-commerce, fintech, the internet of things, and the Halal economy will be the main emphasis.
“We believe that both the fund and the portfolio companies will benefit substantially from Allianz’s ecosystem locally here in Malaysia as well as globally,” said Gobi co-founder Thomas Tsao.
Gobi SuperSeed II Fund, which will debut in 2020, will be able to fund up to 25 portfolio firms. In addition to PolicyStreet and Speedhome, it has also invested in Sunway Group’s Sunway Innovation Labs and digital news site TechNode.
In order to develop a US $20 million Shariah-compliant fund, Gobi teamed up with the Malaysian social finance platform Ethis Group earlier this year.
