With Abheek Anand, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital
David Gowdey, Managing Partner, Jungle Ventures
The SE Asian startup ecosystem seems to be at a transformational stage. Buoyed by macro drivers and an accelerated pace of digital adoption, startups in the region have raised big-ticket rounds, hit unicorn milestones, scaled up within the region and global markets, are open to consolidation play and looking at overseas venues for potential listings. The COVID-19 event has further sharpened the focus on fundamentals and sustainability business metrics.
In this panel, we feature Sequoia Capital India and Singapore-headquartered Jungle Ventures – two prolific and well-entrenched investors in SE Asia – who will take us through the evolving landscape and the potential of building enduring and scalable companies from this region.
Jungle Ventures recently hit the $225-million first close of its $350 million fourth fund that will invest across 15 to 18 companies in the seed to Series B stages. The VC firm has already seen a number of its portfolio firms earn unicorn status including BNPL giant Kredivo, whose parent FinAccel recently agreed to merge with Victory Park Capital’s blank cheque firm at a combined valuation of $2.5 billion. Jungle’s other portfolio firms include the Indonesian beauty platform Sociolla and B2B e-commerce platform Moglix. Jungle’s top investment themes include social commerce, SME digitalisation, B2B payments, and fintech.
Our panelist David Gowdey represents Jungle on the boards of Pomelo, Kredivo, Sociolla, Kiotviet, Saltmine, among others. Prior to Jungle, he was with TPG Capital where he led internet investments outside of the US within the TPG Growth fund.
Sequoia Capital India in July last year raised a total of $1.35 billion for two new funds that will invest across India and Southeast Asia. With the two new funds and an existing seed fund, Sequoia India now invests across all the startup stages in India and Southeast Asia. Sequoia India established a presence in SE Asia in 2012 and gained an early-mover advantage by backing Indonesia’s largest unicorns Go-Jek, Tokopedia and Traveloka. SE Asia accounts for 20-30% of Sequoia India’s investments, by value.
Sequoia’s Abheek Anand, who was previously with Facebook, has advised investments in Akulaku, BukuKas, GudangAda, Hmlet, Incomlend, LingoAce, MoneyTap, Stashaway, Ula, among others.
Join this session to learn what it takes to build lasting businesses of scale.
