Singapore is seeing a rise in enterprise capital funding, reflecting growing interest in Southeast Asian startups.
This month, Vertex Ventures and two other venture-capital firms accomplished fundraising efforts in the town, each with its largest fund so far. In September, East Ventures, which has been an early bettor on successful startups like Tokopedia and Traveloka, raised $30 million to be utilized in seed and early-stage funding.
Investors are flocking to regional enterprise capital firms as they seek opportunities outside the U.S. and China, the first targets for Asian deals in recent times. The Singapore government is providing incentives to draw entrepreneurs and enterprise capitalists—cutting regulatory red tape, protecting mental property and allocating public money for early investment.
“Singapore has invested heavily in its startup ecosystem over the past decade,” said Paul Meyers, head of muru-D Singapore, Telstra Corp.’s accelerator program. “As a result, we’re seeing more — and better quality — startups emerging and getting funded.”
The U.S. continues to steer the enterprise capital industry, accounting for $21.5 billion of the $39 billion invested in total within the third quarter, in accordance with KPMG’s Venture Pulse Q3 2017 report. Asia is the second-largest region with $12.3 billion, with China attracting $10.2 billion of that total.
Venture capital investment in Singapore totaled $725.3 million within the second quarter of this 12 months, boosted by Sea Ltd.’s $550 million funding round, in accordance with KPMG. In the three months since, investment has totaled $140.3 million.
“The fact that significant growth is still being recorded is evidence that Singapore’s startup scene continues to produce companies that can attract significant capital,” the report said.
“There’s a huge market potential in Southeast Asia,” said JP Lee, partner and managing director of SoftBank Ventures Korea, which backed Indonesian Tokopedia. “There’s economic growth, government support and recognition of talent. We plan to do more work there.”
Source: This is a component of the unique article published by Bloomberg
