Asia Partners raises $384m in final close of its inaugural fund for SEA startups

Singapore-based growth equity investment firm Asia Partners announced the final close of its inaugural fund Asia Partners I LP at US$384 million in commitments.

The Asia Partners team / Source: Asia Partners

Founded in June 2019, Asia Partners aims to bridge the gap between early-stage venture capital and the public capital markets. Its investment size in startups range from US$20 million to US$100 million, which is often described as the series C or D rounds of funding.

The limited partners in this new fund include institutional investors, family offices, corporations, and individual investors such as the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG) from Germany.

The company roped in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as legal advisors of the fundraise. Meanwhile, Southern Right Capital and GCA Advisors acted as placement agents.

“We believe the decade ahead will be a golden age of entrepreneurship and innovation for Southeast Asia,” said Oliver Minho Rippel, a partner at Asia Partners.

The investment firm claimed that the fund is the largest debut tech fund specifically focused on Southeast Asia. Over 7% of the fund’s capital is from Asia Partners’ co-founders and its advisory board members.

“We look forward to continuing our investment program and to applying our co-founding team’s and advisory board’s collective experience to helping our companies grow, both geographically and strategically,” said Nicholas Nash, the firm’s managing partner and a member of its investment committee.

See also: A cheat sheet of tech acquisitions in Southeast Asia

Asia Partners has invested more than US$90 million across its first three investments in startups that have operations throughout Southeast Asia. One of them was in online budget hotel startup RedDoorz where it led a series C round of US$70 million in August 2019.