This foreign VC just snuck into Indonesia and is setting up an accelerator

Gina Heng, CEO of Marvelstone

A couple of weeks ago Tech in Asia raised US$4 million from a group of international investors. One of them was Marvelstone, a name you may never have heard of if you’re based in Indonesia.

Marvelstone is a venture capital firm that claims to have a strong presence in Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Co-founder and CEO Gina Heng says her company develops and funds growing Asian businesses. The firm’s key focus is the financial sector, but it has also dabbled in the tech, real estate, hospitality, trading, and media verticals.

Heng oversees all of Marvelstone’s portfolio companies and subsidiaries which include the firm’s affiliate accelerator, called 10K.

Days after Tech in Asia announced its investment, Marvestone’s managing partner Joel Ko visited Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, claiming to be on the hunt for interesting startups in areas like fintech. Heng says Marvelstone is also currently hunting for tech firms in ecommerce, social platforms, and O2O. She adds that in particular, the VC has a keen eye on mobile commerce companies in the beauty or cosmetics verticals.

See: Life.Sreda, Marvelstone to invest in Korean fintech startups

All sizes

Heng says that Marvelstone invests at all stages, including in growth companies facing an IPO, a merger, or acquisition. However, she says the firm as a whole does prefer to throw money down on startups in earlier stages so as to continue investing as they grow.

“From a VC view, we are more interested in startups that we can help to bring to new markets and grow quickly,” she explains. “We are not just a financial investor […] We want to invest in startups where we can contribute more than money.”

Marvelstone likes to seed companies with investments anywhere between US$25,000 to US$500,000, then invest again during the next round with a larger amount between US$1 million and US$2 million. “Even though we can do really later stage investment like pre-IPO investments, we’d like to participate from [the] early stage,” she explains. “It really depends on how we can help the companies.”

Eyes on Jakarta

The next step is to make a big move in Indonesia. Heng feels Indonesia’s early tech ecosystem is not as strong as other markets. She says: