Utsav Somani’s iSeed launches South East Asia Fund

Micro venture capital fund iSeed, launched in May by Utsav Somani, has rolled a new fund to focus on seed-stage investments across Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand.

The iSeed South East Asia fund will be managed by Somani, the India head of San Francisco-based investment crowdfunding platform AngelList, and managing partner Wing Vasiksiri, according to a blog post. 

The fund will be backed by Naval Ravikant -- founder and chairman of AngelList, Kunal Bahl --founder and CEO of Snapdeal, Jonathan Swanson --founder and chairman of Thumbtack, and others.

Target corpus of the sector-agnostic iSeed SEA has not been disclosed as it is still in fundraising mode. According to The Economic Times report, the fund size will likely be similar to iSeed India -- $5 million.

iSeed India aims to invest in 30 early-stage technology companies with an average ticket size of $150,000.  

In addition, the platform has also launched a “knowledge council" to help its portfolio members.

“The council includes Sriram Krishnan (ex-Product at Twitter), Prasanna Sankar (cofounder of Rippling), Sahil Lavingia (founder of Gumroad), and Anne Dwane (founder of Village Global), amongst others. They’ve committed to working with our portfolio founders to bring best practices from the US to India and Southeast Asia,” Vasiksiri said.

“Southeast Asia is emerging as the fastest-growing tech ecosystem. With a population of over 670 million across 11 countries, 13 unicorns have emerged and many more will be built in the coming years. I am excited to watch this ecosystem unfold and to bring my investing experience and network back home,” he added.