A new breed of VC limited partners in SEA: startup founders

During his time at Uber, Vidit Agrawal frequently spent weekends hanging out with startup founders to get a peek into the entrepreneurial life. He would listen to them talk about their businesses and the challenges they encountered, loving the passion they exuded.

What started as a hobby quickly became a side hustle. He started investing in some of these promising founders, even through his time as Carro’s chief operations officer and as Stripe’s first Asia hire. During that period, he invested in over 20 startups across the US, India, and Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asian founders turned limited partners (from left): GajiGesa’s Vidit Agrawal, Kopi Kenangan’s Edward Tirtanata, Fabelio’s Christian Sutardi, and Payfazz’s Hendra Kwik / Photo credits: TechCrunch, Endeavor Indonesia, YourStory, and DailySocial

But Agrawal’s side hustle took a back seat when he started his own company in 2020, the earned wage access platform GajiGesa. His responsibilities as a founder of a VC-backed business left him with little to no bandwidth for sourcing deals.

Still keen to remain in the startup investment game, Agrawal took the indirect route and put his money into venture capital funds instead.

“I believe [startups] are a good financial investment, so I started investing in funds. That way, I get access to startups but don’t have to spend time doing due diligence or take part in meetings,” he explains.

Forge Ventures co-founders Kaspar Hidayat and Tiang Lim Foo / Photo credit: Forge Ventures

To date, Agrawal says he has invested in multiple funds, the latest being Forge Ventures’ maiden fund. He is hardly the only one to back the new fund: Forge Ventures’ limited partners (LPs) include founders and operators from companies like Carousell, Fabelio, Funding Societies, Kopi Kenangan, and Qoala.

A side hustle with little hustle

Founders as LPs is a fairly new phenomenon in Southeast Asia, but it seems to be inevitable. Like Agrawal, others that have invested in Forge Ventures’ fund are known for their angel investments.

Kopi Kenangan’s Edward Tirtanata has backed car service startup Otoklix and healthtech company Klinik Pintar, while Fabelio’s Christian Sutardi is also a prolific angel investor in Indonesia.

Some of them have gone one step further. Kopi Kenangan’s founders also run the Kenangan Fund, which has invested in multiple early-stage rounds such as that of audio content startup Noice. Meanwhile, Bukalapak co-founder and former CEO Achmad Zaky set up Init 6 soon after exiting the ecommerce unicorn.

According to Agrawal, the trend of founders investing back into the ecosystem has been spurred partly by exits. Forge Ventures shares this notion, suggesting that the phenomenon is a “function of founders unlocking much more liquidity through exit secondaries.”

For these founders, angel investments would be their first port of call. But at a certain point, investing in funds becomes more convenient for them, as they will no longer have to do “the heavy lifting.”

Small money, large value

Costly, but here to stay?