East Ventures unveils new $30m Indonesia-focused early stage fund

Southeast Asian venture capital firm East Ventures has launched a new US$30 million investment fund. Though it will cover the whole region, the fund will focus on Indonesia, and will mainly target seed and series A investments in startups working within the digital space.

Founded in 2010 by managing partners Willson Cuaca, Batara Eto, and Taiga Matsuyama, East Ventures has since become one of the prominent players in Southeast Asia’s VC scene. In a statement announcing the new fund, the firm said it has invested in 116 businesses across the consumer internet, mobile, and software segments to date, with a survival rate of 83 percent.

With specific regards to Indonesia, East Ventures said it has played a part in 192 deals in the country – or about half of all venture investments that have been made there. According to the firm’s own data, it has provided seed capital to more than 70 percent of startups that have secured funding at series A and above in the archipelago.

Cashing in

East Ventures is presumably cashing in fairly handsomely on several of its seed-stage bets, having been among the early backers of companies like Tokopedia – which raised US$1.1 billion in an Alibaba-led funding round last month – and Traveloka, which revealed a US$350 million capital injection from Expedia in July. (Disclosure: East Ventures is an investor in Tech in Asia. See our ethics statement for more info).

It has also been an early-stage investor in startups that have been acquired by some of the region’s fastest-growing tech companies. East Ventures portfolio startup Kudo was bought by Singapore-based ride-hailing company Grab in a payments play earlier this year. Event ticketing business Loket, one of the firm’s series A investments, was purchased by Grab’s Indonesian competitor Go-Jek last month.

Other startups in the East Ventures portfolio include Thai payments gateway Omise – which closed a US$25 million ICO in July – and Singaporean property listings site 99.co, which raised US$7.9 million in a funding round back in April.

This month, East Ventures-backed shared workspace provider EV Hive secured US$3.5 million in pre-series A funding. This week, the firm invested in Telcoin – a Tokyo-based startup establishing a virtual currency that is intended to enable financial inclusion through telecom industry partnerships – with co-founder and managing partner Eto buying into its ICO.