Ex-Sea boss Nick Nash, tech execs launch Southeast Asia-focused fund

Asia Partners, a growth equity investment firm co-led by former Sea Group president Nick Nash, was launched today. The new venture aims to address the lack of series B and C funding for technology and technology-driven companies in Southeast Asia.

Asia Partners co-founder Nick Nash (L). Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

The Singapore-based company is looking to make investments of between US$20 million and US$100 million and aims to capitalize on the region’s long-term growth potential.

According to a Bain & Company report, Southeast Asia will become home to at least 10 new firms with a market value of more than US$1 billion each by 2024. The region’s internet economy, which reached US$72 billion in 2018, is also expected to exceed US$240 billion by 2025, according to a study by US tech giant Google and Singapore’s Temasek.

“We believe the next decade will be a golden age of entrepreneurship and innovation for Southeast Asia, and we are deeply focused on accelerating that progress,” said Oliver Minho Rippel, co-founder and partner at Asia Partners.

Rippel and Nash’s fellow founders include Pitra Ciputra Harun, Kien Nguyen, and Vorapol Supanusonti. Supanusonti was a senior executive at Sea. Harun was head of digital goods for Indonesian ecommerce player Bukalapak, while Nguyen was an independent member of the board of Vietnamese dairy company Vinamilk.