Singapore-based early-stage investor Jungle Ventures, which has Tata Sons Ltd’s interim chairman Ratan Tata as an adviser, has closed its second venture fund at $100 million, the firm said in a statement.
The second fund has received the backing of Temasek Holdings, International Finance Corporation, National Research Foundation of Singapore, Germany-based Hubert Burda Media, Nigerian trading group Kewalram Chanrai Group and Singapore businessman and Wilmar International co-founder Khoon Hong Kuok.
This fund was floated in August last year and is 10 times the size of Jungle Venture’s first fund. The same month, VCCircle reported that IFC had committed as much as $10 million to the fund, in addition to investing a similar sum through a co-investment vehicle.
The investment said that the new fund will primarily invest in Series A and Series B rounds in tech startups in Southeast Asia. It will also look at opportunities in India and Australia for companies that can benefit from expansion into Southeast Asia.
Previous funds, investments
Jungle Ventures, which launched its first fund in 2012 with a $10 million seed-to-early stage fund, invests in technology-oriented startups in South and Southeast Asia.
Three of four partners at Jungle Ventures are of Indian origin—Anurag Srivastava, Amit Anand and Jayesh Parekh, co-founder of Sony Entertainment Television India, who joined the firm in 2013.
It has a team of 15 operating and investing professionals, the firm said.
Jungle Ventures brought Ratan Tata as an adviser in July 2015. Tata would help the firm’s portfolio companies become strong Asian and global leaders in the tech space, the firm said at the time.
A few weeks later, it roped in former TPG Growth executive David Gowdey as a managing partner.
In addition to Tata, other advisers at Jungle Ventures include Gokul Rajaram (product engineering lead at Square), Lim Dershing (founder of JobsCentral), Alon Sobol (director of ISP/ Telco Relationships for Spotify) and.
In September 2015, Jungle Ventures floated a separate $20 million seed fund to augment its seed investment in early-stage technology companies in the region.
Jungle Ventures is best known for its exit from ZipDial. It invested in ZipDial in late 2012 and exited in 2015 when it was sold.
In June this year, Jungle Ventures scored another exit when e-commerce company ShopClues acquired Momoe Technologies Pvt Ltd.
In India, its recent investments include Commeasure India Pvt Ltd, which runs a B2B platform helping hotels develop their direct booking systems in Singapore. In January 2015, the fund invested in Social Audience Pvt Ltd, a company behind the data intelligence startup Tookitaki.
Jungle Ventures’ other investments include Tradegecko, Travelmob, Fastacash and Crayondata in Singapore; India-based Livspace and Pokkt; Malaysia-based iMoney and CatchThatBus; Thailand’s Pomelo Fashion and Australia’s Edrolo.
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