Intudo Ventures explained how the upcoming General Election will affect their investment strategy in Indonesia –or not
Venture capital (VC) firm Intudo Ventures today announced that it has closed a US$50 million fund for Indonesia-only early stage startups.
The new fund followed the firm’s debut fund of US$20 million, which it had closed in February 2018.
In a press statement, Intudo Ventures broke down the the fund’s limited partners (LPs) into three major geographical locations: US, Indonesia, and Taiwan, with the “overwhelming majority” of its existing LPs returning to back the second fund.
The LPs for the fund included the Founders Fund, Wasson Enterprise (US-based family office of former Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Greg Wasson), World Innovation Lab (a US-Japan VC fund), President (BVI) International Investment Holdings Ltd (the investment arm of Taiwan-based international F&B and retail conglomerate Uni-President Enterprises Corp.), CTBC Group (Taiwan-based global financial holding company) as well as “more than twenty” Indonesian conglomerate families and “several” tech unicorn founders and executives.
The firm has made first investment from its second fund, and is aiming to invest in 12 to 16 companies with an initial investment amount of US$500,000 to US$5 million into each company.
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“We look for industry winners and overlooked deals, instead of trying to index the market. We aim to be Indonesia’s leading Series A fund, and anticipate Series A investments will make up the dominant composition of our fund, while leaving room for opportunistic seed and Series B investments in founders and companies with break-out potential,” the firm explained.
“While we primarily invest in Indonesian homegrown early-stage companies, we selectively invest in and bring overseas breakout companies that have a thoroughly fleshed-out Indonesia roadmap into the market,” it added.
Only in Indonesia
Following up the launch of its second fund, Intudo Ventures Founding Partners Eddy Chan and Patrick Yip spoke to e27 to explain further about their investment approach, which one of them includes being an “Indonesia-only” VC investment firm.
Back when the firm launched its debut fund, it started out with an “Indonesia-focussed” thesis. But the firm decided to take it further with its second fund by streamlining to “Indonesia-only.”
Chan explained to e27 that once its portfolio company has established a dominant position in the Indonesian market, Intudo Ventures will encourage them to expand to neighbouring countries to build dominant market positions.
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“For startups, it is easier to claim the region’s largest market first than to try to break in from smaller markets. As such, we work closely with companies to ensure that they capture a dominant position in Indonesia, and then help them expand outwards through our strategic network,” he said.
Indonesia itself is set to have its General Election on April 17, 2019. In the previous years, general elections have always been known to possess a certain degree of uncertainty. This might lead investors to take a more careful, wait-and-see approach before investing in the market.
But Intudo Ventures generally felt optimistic about the upcoming general election, and its impact to the country’s tech industry.
“The current administration’s underlying policy framework will continue to support entrepreneurship and digital transformation. I don’t think there’ll be any drastic changes whether the outcome is one way or another,” Yip said.
“When we are investing in the fund and in a company, we are taking a long-term view. If we were more of a public market fund … that is more susceptive to market fluctuation and volatility, of course events like this can be quite game-changing. But we tend to de-risk our investment by [giving] the values that we are giving to the companies: Being hands-on, getting the right people on board, solving [challenges in] distribution and government relations. With that approach and the support from the government, we are pretty bullish in this market regardless of the outcome of the election,” he further explained.
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