“This is our hard stop. However, given the significant inbound interest and oversubscription, we might look at increasing the overall fund size,” said managing partner Nicholas Cator.
The Singapore-based fund’s anchor investors include Peugeot Invest, a Peugeot family investment vehicle; Ackermans & Van Haaren, a diversified group; Generation P, a holding company set up by Frédéric de Mévius, founder of Verlinvest and Planet First Partners; and Alexander de Wit, a former executive director at Verlinvest and cofounder of Planet First.
Founded by Cator, the investment platform will look to back high-growth Asian consumer companies with an online or offline presence in sectors ranging from FMCG to education and healthcare services.
The fund will back 7-8 companies with cheques of $15-40 million each. “A narrow portfolio allows us more time to work with the portfolio companies, given the operator experience we all bring to the table,” Cator said.
It will support portfolio companies in subsequent funding rounds and offer its investors a co-investment option.
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“We offer our families more transparency on our portfolio than a traditional fund and will offer up to 100% of their commitment in co-investment opportunities. This enables us to deploy larger amounts into our portfolio companies and to support them over multiple rounds,” Cator said.
It has already deployed around 30% of the new fund in three deals — in Livspace, Believe Pte and another venture that Cator said would be announced soon.
“Our investment period is four years and hence we aim to deploy the rest of the capital over the next 24 months,” Cator said.
A lot of fund managers with a focus on India and the subcontinent have raised capital from investors to back emerging businesses from the region. Funds such as Sequoia Capital India, Accel India, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Jungle Ventures and Vertex Ventures have recently raised or are in the process of raising large pools of capital to invest in India and Southeast Asia.
