Jungle Ventures raises US$225m to invest in India, South-east Asia

[SINGAPORE] Jungle Ventures raised US$225 million in the first close of its fourth fund as the venture capital (VC) firm seeks to replicate its successes in startups across South-east Asia and India.

Many of its existing investors in previous funds backed the latest one, founding partner Amit Anand said in an interview. They include Temasek Holdings, International Finance Corp and German development finance institution DEG. The new fund has a planned size of US$350 million.

There has been a flurry of fundraising activities and initial public offerings (IPO) in South-east Asia and India, where the tech industry is having a boom year.

Since launching its first early-stage fund in 2012, Jungle Ventures has become one of the fastest-growing local VC firms in the city-state with assets under management of about US$600 million.

"We have coined two unicorns this year where we have been seed-to-IPO investors," Anand said. "We have built a franchise that will repeat quarter after quarter, and that separates us from the one-hit wonder venture-capital providers."

Singapore-based Jungle Ventures has been an early and consistent backer of Kredivo, which went on to become Indonesia's largest consumer lending app, as well as business-to-business e-commerce platform Moglix.

Kredivo's parent, FinAccel, in August agreed to go public in the US through a merger with a blank-cheque firm that values the combined entity at US$2.5 billion.

Other noteworthy Jungle Ventures investments include home-interior platform Livspace, beauty e-commerce operator Sociolla and Pomelo, a women's fashion retailer in South-east Asia.

BLOOMBERG