Early-stage VC fund Jungle Ventures launches $10M angel fund for Asian startups

Singapore-based early-stage VC fund Jungle Ventures has launched its new pan-Asian angel fund and raised $10 million from a slew of investors for its first closing.

The investors who are a part of this fund include Asian entrepreneurs and tech executives like Jayesh Parekh (co-founder, Sony Entertainment Television), Anurag Srivastava (CEO, Spacematrix), Peng T Ong (founder of Match.com, Interwoven and Encentuate), Dan Neary, (VP & GM, global market development, Skype), Toivo Annus (former head of engineering at Skype) and Lim Der Shing (founder & CEO of JobsCentral), among other angels and institutional investors.

The fund has been announced today at an event called TechVenture 2012, being held in Singapore from 16-18 October. "We have made 4-5 investments annually over the past few years and look to increase it steadily in 2013 with the new fund in place," said Amit Anand, founder and managing partner of Jungle Ventures.

Jungle Ventures has also announced new additions to its team as Peng T Ong e and Jayesh Parekh joined the fund as chairman and managing partner, respectively.

The fund is also one of the newly appointed incubators under the Singapore National Research Foundation's (NRF) technology incubation scheme (TIS) where qualifying startups receive access to funding from the government while working with the approved incubators.

Jungle Ventures was founded by a group of investors in Singapore and India and focuses on early-stage investments in Singapore, India and the South-east Asia. The fund is led by Amit Anand who is also the deputy chairman for the Business Angels Network South East Asia (BANSEA), and Anurag Srivastava, an entrepreneur and angel investor in Singapore. The fund's recent investments ekstop.com , Mobikon, travelmob, Sconce Solutions among others.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)