Jungle Ventures close to raising $100M for investing in Asia

Amit Anand of Jungle Ventures

Jungle Ventures, a Singapore-based venture capital firm, announced it is raising a new US$100 million fund. That’s ten times more than its first fund, raised in 2012. US$65 million has been closed so far, and the firm expects to complete the fundraising in three months.

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings has put money into the new fund, together with over half of the investors from Jungle’s inaugural fund.

At inception, the firm targeted early stage deals. But now, this new and larger pot is also aimed at series A and B startups. Jungle Ventures founder and managing partner Amit Anand says the firm plans to invest US$5 million to US$6 million in a company’s lifecycle.

The VC firm has seen three exits with its old fund, with a 50 percent return on capital so far. Zipdial was acquired by Twitter, Travelmob was bought by HomeAway, and eBus was acquired by IMD. The firm received a 50 percent return on capital so far. Region-wise, Jungle’s focus remains in India, Southeast Asia, and Asia-Pacific.

Amit says he’s excited about vertical ecommerce, given that general ecommerce is already dominated by large players. He’s also looking at opportunities in Asian enterprise tech startups with global products. Find out more about Jungle Ventures’ portfolio in our database.

Besides investing in Jungle Ventures, Temasek does late stage investing in tech companies like Alibaba. It also has a stake in younger internet firms through Vertex Ventures, its wholly-owned venture capital subsidiary.

Update on Sep 22, 6pm: Added that Temasek invested in Jungle.

Update on Sep 22, 10am: Article originally mentioned that Jungle raised US$100 million. That is incorrect. It has raised US$65 million en route to a US$100 million goal.

Sources: TechCrunch, Straits Times