ARISE & Centauri’s successor VC platform Ascent Venture Group to launch with $200 M corpus

A new venture platform called Ascent Venture Group was formally introduced as the replacement for two Indonesian venture capital funds called ARISE and Centauri.

With four partners, ten investment professionals, and a supporting operational team spread across offices in Jakarta, Singapore, and Seoul, Ascent is the largest ecosystem-linked venture platform in the area and has access to multibillion-dollar ecosystems throughout the rest of Southeast Asia.

Before the group joined forces with Ascent, ARISE, and Centauri were founded in 2019 as a result of a partnership between MDI Ventures and KB Investment. Aldi Adrian Hartanto, Hans De Back, Kenneth Li, and Eric (Jung Ho) Yoo (representing KB Investments), serial technology entrepreneurs and investors, are currently in charge of this newly established venture platform. They will lead a new fund that will replace the two predecessor funds.

According to a statement, Ascent invests in high-growth startups across the quickly expanding markets of Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia using a thesis-driven approach.

“The term ‘Ascent’, our recently adopted name, embodies the concept of “The Act of Rising Upward,” emerging from the amalgamation of our previous fund titles, “ARISE” and “Centauri.” This name encapsulates the passion and determination that our team employs while investing in and supporting our unwavering founders in their pursuit of ambitious objectives, navigating and conquering challenges that come their way to reach the top.”, said Kenneth Li, Managing Partner at Ascent Venture Group.

More than 70% of the companies in which Ascent predecessor funds invested successfully raised additional funding from outside investors after Ascent’s initial investments, leading to two mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and an initial public offering (IPO), with respective money-on-invested-capital (MOIC) or investment profit rate metrics of 3.2 times and 1.75 times. Agriaku, Evermos, Qoala, Paxel, and Fishlog are a few of the portfolio companies.

“Our goal was to consolidate our resources and network of ecosystems to build a platform of exponential value that can strengthen our ‘thesis-driven’ strategy and provide significant Product-Market Fit support to our portfolio Founders as they seed and scale successful businesses across Indonesia – the largest market in Southeast Asia,” said Aldi Adrian Hartanto, Managing Partner at Ascent Venture Group. “In addition, Ascent’s close relationship with prominent growth-stage investment groups like KB Investment and MDI Ventures enables additional support for portfolios with later-stage capital as the companies enter Marginal Profit or Business-Model Fit.”

Additionally, Ascent has started its third flagship venture fund with a $200 million fundraising goal. Over the next two years, the new venture fund will invest in 25 high-potential, early-stage, tech-enabled businesses with a focus on Indonesia and beyond using a “thesis-driven” approach and leveraging its access to a strong ecosystem.