VENTURE capital firm Square Peg announced the close of its fifth fund, raising US$550 million.

The firm raised over US$1.6 billion across five funds, and returned over US$580 million to investors across 11 exits at an internal rate of return of 42 per cent.

Some South-east Asian portfolio companies include telehealth platform DoctorAnywhere, Fintech FinAccel and software-as-a-service company LottieFiles.

Investors in the fifth fund include Australian superannuation funds Hostplus and AustralianSuper, as well as family offices, institutions and endowments, of which some are returning investors.

“We have raised funds in a time of global uncertainty thanks to the enduring support of our investors and the efforts of great founders who continue to build businesses that shine. We are certain the next wave of great businesses will emerge from this current period and we are excited to have the ability to continue to back them,” said Tushar Roy, a partner at Square Peg.

The capital raised will be deployed into two areas, in seed to Series B rounds of companies, and into late stage rounds of emerging companies that Square Peg has supported in earlier rounds.

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The venture capital firm continues to see potential in their key thematic sectors of fintech, edtech, future of work, healthtech and SaaS in its three key markets of Australia, Israel and South-east Asia.

“There is still a lot more potential in these categories. In addition we are keeping a keen eye on the high levels of activity in Web3 across the region, and have made investments like Lysto where the founding teams are strong and the underlying business models are sound,” said Roy.

The fifth fund has already done a few investments, such as SaaS companies Kula and Supabase in South-east Asia. Square Peg has a presence in Singapore, with partners Roy and Piruze Sabuncu based in the island republic.

Sabuncu said: “We already know the potential South-east Asia presents when we look at the basic macro numbers, but the last few years have proven that you can build global businesses from this region, or create new business models that can disrupt the way people access various services - whether it is lending, education or healthcare”.