Northstar appoints GFC partner Melvin Hade to co-lead new VC fund

Northstar Group, the Southeast Asian private equity giant, has appointed Melvin Hade, an Indonesia-based partner at Global Founders Capital (GFC), to co-lead its newly established VC fund.

GFC partner Melvin Hade / Photo credit Melvin Hade

Speaking exclusively to Tech in Asia, Hade confirmed his move to Northstar, where he will be heading early-stage investments along with Carlson Lau, a current managing director at the firm.

“I believe Northstar is well-positioned to capture the early-stage tech opportunity in the next decade and has a unique advantage to best support early-stage founders in Indonesia and Southeast Asia to thrive in this changing market environment,” he says.

As one of the major private equity players in Southeast Asia, Northstar has occasionally cut smaller checks over the years to back several tech startups in the region including GoTo, Bank Jago, eFishery, Moladin, Ula, Pintu, ESB, Tiki, amongst others.

The new fund marks the Northstar’s first venture into early stage tech investments since the establishment of its affiliate VC fund NSI Ventures in 2014, which later went independent and rebranded as Openspace Ventures.

With the appointment of Hade, Northstar hopes to leverage the investment experience he has acquired through his time leading GFC’s Southeast Asia early-stage investments for more than three years.

Hade, who started his career at McKinsey, says he is confident that his early-stage investment experience, prior work with growth-stage funds and understanding of early-stage founders’ needs will aid Northstar in its tech investment play.

“As I witness these three things first-hand as an early-stage investor for more than three years, I believe I can complement Northstar’s strong PE track record in growth and later stage investing with my early-stage investment focus and experience supporting early-stage companies like Astro, Pinhome and Fit Hub, amongst others,” he says.

Hade declined to go into detail about the new fund, which is called Northstar Ventures (NSV). However, he says that it will be open to investing across different sectors, but it has developed a thesis around four key sectors, namely consumers, fintech, enterprise software, and Web3.

The fund will also be on the lookout for visionary founders with proven track record, large growing markets and clear path to profitability in three to five years time.

“In this changing environment, we will not only focus on scaling but also on clear monetization strategies and path to profitability,” he says.