Insignia Ventures Founding Managing Partner Yinglan Tan
Singapore-based early-stage VC firm Insignia Ventures Partners has announced the final close of its latest funds, totalling US$516 million.
According to a statement, this included US$388 million for the main fund IVPF III, US$28 million for an entrepreneurs’ pool that invests alongside the main fund, and US$100 million for Annex Fund I. These funds will focus on early-stage technology investments in Southeast Asia.
Investors in the new fund include unnamed sovereign wealth funds, foundations, university endowments, and renowned family offices from Asia, Europe, and North America.
“We could have raised a much higher amount, but we have learned that smaller, tighter funds do better,” Founding Managing Partner Yinglan Tan said.
“We see a once-in-a-decade opportunity to capture outlier returns, as the winners become very obvious when the tide goes out,” he went on. “At the same time, winners cannot just be defined by valuations and scale but are ultimately companies with sustainable unit economics and concrete value creation. A fine balance between speed and endurance defines our search for outlier returns.”
Also Read: (Exclusive) Sequoia Capital’s Venture Partner Yinglan Tan quits, launching a new VC fund
Launched in 2017, Insignia Ventures backs companies in the consumer, cryptocurrency, enterprise, education, fintech, gaming, healthcare, logistics, marketplace, and proptech sectors. It has invested in more than 50 companies, including unicorns such as auto retail platform Carro, Indonesian digital investment platform Ajaib, AI for business intelligence company Appier (listed in Japan last year), and GoTo (listed in Indonesia this year).
Insignia Ventures’s other investments are fintech firm Payfazz (now Fazz Financial), Indonesian commerce enabler Shipper, the Philippines’ first fully digital bank Tonik, mental health tech company Intellect, conversational AI market leader WIZ.AI, and open banking platform Brankas.
The VC firm aims to be more aggressive in “next-decade sunrise sectors” like web3, climate tech, healthcare and agriculture.
The press release mentioned that Insignia Ventures’s enterprise value is over US$46 billion on US$304.9 million of invested capital, with a loss ratio of less than 2 per cent. Its portfolio companies have also attracted US$7.7 billion in follow-on funding.
“The impact made by the biggest companies out of Southeast Asia in the past decade will be surface-level compared to the impact market makers of the next decade will be making. There is understated but critical alignment between the solutions coming out of these areas and long-standing problems in the region from end-to-end food sustainability to trust with institutions,” Tan added.
“The solutions to these problems cannot be solved by technology startups alone, and these sectors may still be early. However, the right founders matched to the right problems can move the needle, and that is precisely why we cannot waste a minute in this “golden hour” to back them.”
Insignia Ventures announced its maiden US$120 million fund in 2017 and launched its second fund worth US$200 million in 2019.
—
Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.
The post Insignia Ventures raises US$516M for its funds; bullish about web3, climate-tech, healthcare in SEA appeared first on e27.