New VC firm focused on Southeast Asia and India launches with $50m fund

Founding partners Edwina Yeo and Ravi Venkatesh / Photo credit: Yeo

As 2019 kicks into full swing, a new venture capital firm is on the hunt for high-growth startups in Southeast Asia and India.

Singapore-headquartered Tanglin Venture Partners targets to raise US$50 million for its inaugural fund, and so far 60 percent of the money has been committed by investors.

Launched late 2018, Tanglin will focus on early stage, with a typical check size of US$2 million to US$3 million. It will consider participating in growth-stage investments “if we meet great teams solving meaningful problems that we believe can give us significant returns,” founding partner Edwina Yeo tells Tech in Asia in an exclusive interview.

Yeo, daughter of former Singapore minister George Yeo, was previously in the portfolio management team of US-based hedge fund Tiger Global. She co-founded Tanglin with Ravi Venkatesh, who was also formerly with Tiger Global. Venkatesh was also eBay’s head of analytics for Asia-Pacific.

Tanglin is keen to invest in both B2B and B2C startups that are organizing fragmented sectors and making distribution of goods and services more efficient, says Yeo.

She sees no better time to launch a VC firm. “The confluence of India’s and Southeast Asia’s young, rising middle-class population and fast-paced mobile-first technology adoption makes for great opportunity,” she says.

“This is further evidenced by the increasing number of tech unicorns in these geographies in the recent few years, marking what we believe to be an inflection point in the region. Now is the time to ride on this wave,” adds Venkatesh.

Tanglin made its first investment in Indian B2B industrial goods marketplace Moglix. It’s doing diligence on a few more.

Yeo’s team is part of a spate of VC firms that have launched Southeast Asia-focused funds in the past couple of years, when the region’s startup capital hit all-time highs.