BEENEXT has allocated over two-thirds of the corpus to Indian startups
Singapore-based venture capital firm BEENEXT has closed two new funds focusing on digital transformation at a total of $160 million, the firm announced in a statement yesterday.
The company did not disclose names of the investors, but said that they include major American institutional investors, Japanese corporations, global family offices, and angel investors.
A chunk of the funding mandated for investment in its newly launched BEENEXT Emerging Asia Fund of $110 million, which focuses on early-stage digital tech startups in India and Southeast Asia geared towards “innovation and growth in the new normal,” the statement noted.
“Now more than ever, we feel the need to nurture the entrepreneurial ecosystem to ensure we bounce back as a strong community of founders,” BEENEXT Founder and Managing Partner Teruhide Sato said in the statement about the impact of Covid-19 on startups.
About 50% of the Emerging Asia Fund will be allocated exclusively to Indian startups, in the ecommerce, fintech, healthtech, agritech, edtech, artificial intelligence and data segments, the statement said.
It added that the Indian market has been one of BEENEXT’s focus areas ever since its 2015 launch. India is the firm’s biggest recipient outside Southeast Asia, and BEENEXT has invested in 72 Indian startups so far (over a third of its portfolio), the statement said.
“BEENEXT has always believed in building businesses together with founders and fellow local co-investors to have a lasting impact. We look forward to co-creating and growing together with more start-ups in India,” Sato said in the statement.
Its second fund of $50 million will be focused on Japanese software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups, the statement noted. Both the funds were announced in late 2019.
It also said that the funds will help connect founders from across the world to networking and partnership opportunities through BEENEXT’s founders’ community.
Some of the firm’s portfolio companies include Singapore-based fashion Ecommerce platform Zilingo, Japanese human resource SaaS company SmartHR, and Indian digital payments app BharatPe.
Earlier this year, BEENEXT led investments in Singapore-based Universal Identity and Trust System solutions provider Credify via a $1 million seed round, and Indian logistics tech startup Loadshare through its $13.3 million Series B.
Its latest investment was in a $500,000 Series A for India-based wealth management service provider Cube. The round was led BEENEXT’s portfolio company CitrusPay’s Founder and Chairman Satyen Kothari, who also founded Cube.
It has also previously invested in startups such as Singapore-based B2B fintech startup Wallex who recently closed their Series A, and Indian tech-enabled logistics aggregator Shiprocket who raised $13 million in a Series C earlier this month.
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