Prominent SEA investors form network to streamline fundraising for founders

The initial 12 investors participating in SEA Checks/ Image credit: SEA Checks x Tech in Asia

Amid one of the worst funding winters for startups, a group of 12 prominent investors in Southeast Asia has formed a network called SEA Checks to streamline the fundraising process for founders.

“Everybody has been talking about how difficult it is to fundraise right now,” said Hsu Ken Ooi, managing partner at Iterative, in a recent interview with Tech in Asia. “How do we make a group of high-quality investors more accessible to founders?”

Ooi, who is leading the initiative, said that with SEA Checks, founders can automatically apply for funding to a diverse group of investors rather than just a single VC firm.

Founders submit their pitch decks, which will then be distributed among members of SEA Checks. Interested investors in the group will reach out.

For now, SEA Checks is looking for startups that are valued at US$10 million or below and are primarily focused on or located in Southeast Asia. Check sizes can range from US$150,000 to US$3 million, and investors will deploy funds from their respective firms.

In the long term, Ooi sees SEA Checks transform into a platform enabling investors from various VC firms to log in, look for new pitches, and hit a button that sends out an email to potential investees.

SEA Checks’ first set of pitch reviews is slated to be on June 12, and Ooi and the team aims to send pitch decks out to ‌participating investors for review every two weeks. Additionally, SEA Checks is scouting for more investors ‌to join the group.

Investments across the region have been quickly drying up as the current economic climate continues to batter the startup scene. Tech in Asia data shows that Southeast Asia went from raising roughly US$2 billion in May last year to not even cracking half of that amount in the same month this year.

See also: A list of fundraising startups from Asia (Updated)