Centauri Fund, a new growth-focussed venture capital fund jointly established by KB Investment, a business unit under Korea’s financial institution KB Financial Group and MDI Ventures, the corporate venture capital initiative under Indonesia’s state-owned telecommunication company TelkomGroup with headquarters in Jakarta and Seoul.
The fund is set to close at US$150 million, and it will begin investing in January 2020 managed by Managing Partner of MDI Ventures Kenneth Li alongside CEO of KB Investment Jong Pil Kim, both act as Centauri Fund’s General Partners.
Centauri Fund is said to be focussed on startups that cover financial technology, e-commerce infrastructure, software-as-a-service, big data, and “digitally native vertical brands”. It will invest
Centauri Fund aims to invest between US$1 million and US$5 million in rounds that range from pre-series A to series B stage in tech startups throughout ASEAN, with an emphasis on its largest market, Indonesia.
Li of MDI Ventures joined the fund right after being able to generate seven exit events within three years of its first investment.
Also Read: Meet the VC: How Indonesia’s MDI Ventures managed 3 overseas exits within a month
Meanwhile, Kim joins Centauri Fund after cultivating multiple investment exit scenarios for KB Financial Group.
“The launch of Centauri Fund is a commitment by both TelkomGroup and KB Investment with the aim of expanding their horizons deeper into the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem, as well as supporting Indonesia and the regional startup space,” explains Achmad Sugiarto, Director of Strategic Portfolio of TelkomGroup.
The fund’s thesis revolves around a principal issue of solving for low success rates and the inability of many startups to transition to the next phases of maturity. Therefore, the fund proactively seeks to mitigate this effect by providing direct support from corporate partners.
Kim adds, “By partnering with Telkom on the Centauri Fund, KB is showing how serious it is about further expansion into ASEAN. We believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that by placing a greater focus on Indonesia, we will be able to effectively realize this mission. We see Centauri Fund as the culmination of two industry powerhouses collaborating to forge a new path of discovery.”
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Photo by Fikri Rasyid on Unsplash
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