Vertex Ventures Announces Final Close Of $305 Mn India-Focused Fund

SUMMARY

It received investments from both existing and new limited partners

The VC firm plans to start deploying the fund before the end of the year

The investment firm has made more than 40 investments across the region

Singapore-headquartered venture capital firm Vertex Ventures has announced the final close of its $305 Mn early stage fund focused on investing in Indian and Southeast Asian technology startups.

The Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India Fund IV received investments from both existing and new limited partners, including sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions, corporates and family offices across Asia and Europe.

The VC firm plans to start deploying the fund before the end of the year. It will continue to invest in early-stage companies in the region across enterprise technology, financial technology and consumer internet.

Vertex debuted in India with India and Southeast Asia fund of 2010 vintage and the second fund of 2014 vintage was fully funded by Temasek via Vertex Venture Holdings. The third fund had surpassed the target corpus to mark the final close at $210 Mn in October 2017.

The investment firm has made more than 40 investments across the region and is completing its last remaining investments from the third fund.

The first Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India fund had returned 19.1% as of March, the second fund returned 24.3% and the third 36.4%, according to the firm. “That’s what caused us to continue our relationship in the fourth fund with a larger commitment amount,” said Roque Velasco, managing partner of Galdana Ventures.

The company’s recent investments include Bengaluru-based social commerce startup GlowRoad, which raised $11.5 Mn in its Series B+ funding round. Other investments include digital lending startup Kissht, real-time mobile app management platform Hansel.io and online meat and fish ordering platform Licious.

From 2014 to H12019, seed stage startups accounted for 53.12% or 2,419 deals in the Indian startup ecosystem, reports DataLabs by Inc42. However, the seed stage funding to the total amount of funding was just 2.47% or $1.26 Bn. This lower share of funding amount can be attributed to the smaller ticket size in these early-stage deals.

At present, there are over 416 venture funds who have a focussed on the early-stage startups in India.

The marquee VC funds like Kalaari Capital, Tiger Global Management, Accel Partners India, Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners among others are already working in parallel with angel networks, HNI’s and corporate investors; and aggressively trying to bridge the gap between early-and late-stage ecosystems.