Singapore’s Insignia Ventures Partners closes second fund with $200m

Singapore-based Insignia Ventures Partners has closed its second fund, drawing in US$200 million from premier institutional investors such as sovereign wealth funds, university endowments, foundations, and renowned family offices from Asia, Europe, and North America.

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Yinglan Tan, former Sequoia Capital venture partner and founding managing partner of Insignia, said this will further Insignia’s efforts to focus on early-stage technological development in Southeast Asia, particularly at a time when smart capital and top talent are flowing into the region.

In 2018, Insignia closed its maiden fund with US$120 million, which was a record for a Southeast Asian VC at the time. Notable companies in the firm’s portfolio include Shipper, an ecommerce fulfillment solution in Indonesia; Janio, an end-to-end logistics service in Southeast Asia; and Logivan, a platform matching truckers with shipping capacity in Vietnam.

A recent report on Southeast Asia’s tech investments in the first half of 2019 by Cento Ventures showed that early-stage activities, meaning small deals less than US$500,000, experienced a spike in the first six months of the year, reaching 254 deals after remaining fairly flat between 2016 and 2018.

This report was first published on KrAsia.