Jungle Ventures' third fund expected to be oversubscribed to $220M as it makes first close of $175M

Southeast Asian investment fund Jungle Ventures has closed $175 million as part of its first close for their third fund, sources close to the matter told YourStory. The early-stage investment fund is expecting to raise a total of $220 million as a part of Fund III, sources added.  

Around 90 percent of the capital raised as part of Jungle Ventures' Fund III came from institutions spanning North America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia, including sovereign wealth funds, endowments, funds of funds, DFIs and strategic family offices, sources told YourStory. Some of the Limited Partners (LPs) in this fund include German development finance institution DEG, International Finance Corporation, Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, and Cisco Investments.

Jungle Ventures raised its first fund in 2012 at $12 million and second fund in 2016 at $100 million. In addition to this, three of Jungle Venture’s investments from the first fund have been acquired by larger companies. These include Bengaluru-based marketing platform Zipdial, which was bought by Twitter; Singapore-based Travelmob, which was acquired by vacation rental company HomeAway; and Voyagin, which was acquired by Japanese ecommerce venture Rakuten.

Sticking to its investment thesis from past funds, Jungle is looking to invest in consumer brands that are targeting millennials and in software startups which are focused on helping SMEs adopt technology in South Asia, YourStory learnt. 

Speaking on Jungle Ventures' investment methodology, sources said,

“Investing in early stages, specifically Series A and Series B, is a unique skill set where you need to be able to underwrite execution capabilities of the founding team or the potential opportunity for the business without too much track record or data to back your decision. Jungle Ventures' target is to always pick 10-15 great founding teams with every fund.”

Through the third fund, the early-stage backer has already invested in five startups, leading Series A and B rounds, respectively. These include two in Indonesia, one in Malaysia, and their first investment in Vietnam. Closer home, Jungle Ventures is looking to find companies in India whose presence can be expanded in Southeast Asia and other global markets.

In addition to this, the VC fund saw about 3,000 companies every year and invested in about five-six companies. Since inception, Jungle has invested in over 30 companies.   

Jungle Venture’s India investments include online home design startup Livspace; Mumbai-based consumer lending startup PaySense; B2B industrial goods ecommerce marketplace Moglix; short-term SME trade finance startup Vayana Network; and crowdfunding platform Milaap, among others.

Apart from Zipdial in India, it also exited mobile payment solution Momoe in 2016 (acquired by Shopclues).  

Also read: Singapore's Jungle Ventures closes second fund with $100M