Vertex Ventures announces final close of Southeast Asia, India fund at $305 mn

Early-stage venture capital firm Vertex Ventures has announced the final close of its Southeast Asia and India fund at $305 million.

Vertex Ventures, an arm of Singapore-based investment company Temasek Holdings, had announced in May it had reached its target corpus of $230 million in its first close. 

Vertex’s new Fund IV was backed by both existing and new limited partners including sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions, corporates and family offices across Asia and Europe, an official statement said.

“Our investors are very positive about Southeast Asia and India, given the strong economic growth in this region, coupled with rapid internet adoption and digitisation of businesses. Our earlier funds have had superior returns and are outperforming benchmarks. This track record was what helped us close the fund so quickly,” said Ben Mathias, managing partner, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India.

Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India has made more than 40 investments across the region and is completing its last remaining investments in Fund III, according to the statement.

The firm aims to start deployments from Fund IV before the end of the year, and will continue its strategy of investing in early-stage and Series A technology companies in Southeast Asia and India across enterprise technology, financial technology and consumer internet, the statement added.

Recent investments by Vertex include women-focused reseller GlowRoad, guesthouse aggregator RoomMe and payments firm InstaReM.

Last year, it invested in OnEMI Technology Solutions, which runs digital lending startup Kissht.