Asia Partners Fund Management, situated in Singapore, declared on Tuesday that it has concluded its second tech fund for Southeast Asia, valued at $474 million.
The investment, according to a statement from Asia Partners, demonstrates investors’ interest in the area despite a global slowdown in venture capital fundraising and initial public offerings.
With the $384 million closing of its first fund in 2021, Asia Partners currently manages $1 billion in assets.
The company usually looks to invest between $20 million and $100 million in order to take advantage of economic expansion in a populated area where digital connectivity is expanding quickly.
Employees and members of the advisory board of the company provide more than 9% of the fund’s capital.
Family offices, institutional and individual investors from six continents are among its limited partners.
“This decade will be a ‘golden age of entrepreneurship and innovation for Southeast Asia’,” the firm’s co-founder and partner Oliver Rippel said.
Prior to that, Rippel worked as an executive for eBay, where she oversaw Southeast Asia strategy. She was also the chief executive of business-to-consumer e-commerce at the massive South African media and internet company Naspers.
The statement claims that the close occurs amid a difficult environment for initial public offerings (IPOs) due to unstable stock markets, the underwhelming performance of numerous listed companies, and high-interest rates that present investors with alluring lower-risk alternatives.
The private equity industry is going through its most difficult fundraising phase since the 2007–2009 financial crisis, and venture markets are also declining.
Citing a November report from Google, Temasek Holdings, the Singaporean state investment company, and consulting firm Bain & Co., it stated that private funding for businesses has decreased recently in Southeast Asia as well.
Nonetheless, it claimed that as more and more people make purchases online, the more than 600-million-person region’s digital economy is growing.
It was mentioned that the digital economy in Southeast Asia, which includes Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, generated $100 billion in revenue last year, eight times more than it did in 2016.
Citing the report, it stated that favorable demographics, rising wealth, and an increasingly urbanized population support the substantial headroom that remains in Southeast Asia.
It did note that there are difficulties in the area, though. It went on to say that it is extremely diverse, with national differences in laws, consumer preferences, and languages.
