Intudo Ventures is an Indonesia-only investment company that announced today that it had closed its third fund. It totaled $115 million. It is called Intudo Ventures Fund III and was raised in three months.
Limited partners of Fund III include Black Kite Investments (the family office of Singaporean businessman Koh Bon Hwee); Wasson Enterprises (the family office former Walgreens Boots Alliance chief executives officer Greg Wasson); and PIDC (the investment arm of Taiwan-based tech unicorns founders and leading global funds and managing partner).
Eddy Chan and Patrick Yip, Intudo's founding partners, launched the firm as the first Indonesian-only venture capital company in June 2017. The debut fund was $10 million. Many people were skeptical at first that a fund that was specifically focused on Indonesian companies in the early stages of their development would succeed, particularly since Yip and Chan had hoped to create a small portfolio and collaborate closely with startups.
Intudo's $50 million second fund was closed in 2019. Chan stated that this helped to validate the company's mission. Pintu, TaniHub Group, and Gredu are some of the portfolio companies that Intudo's first two funds have invested in.
We were initially told that we would raise $10 million. Managers laughed at us. But four years later, we had raised roughly $200 million. He shared this with TechCrunch. This shows that hyperlocal is the best option for those markets.
Intudo plans to invest in 12 to 14 startups for its third fund. These will be in areas like finance, insurance, healthcare, logistics, and agriculture. The initial check sizes will be between $1 million and $10 million. Intudo will continue to focus on Series A and early-stage rounds. However, it plans to also invest in Series B rounds for companies that have been acquired from its initial two funds.
Intudo's limited partners, unlike many other funds with a few anchor investors, are limited to 10% of the total fund size. This allows it to maintain its independent investment thesis and ensure that all LPs are treated equally.
Chan said that 10% is a good number. It signals to the founders that they are doing the best thing for their company, and not for any one group.
The firm will search for companies that have strong intellectual property and deep tech competitive moats. It will also look for companies that operate within highly-regulated industries that are difficult to penetrate.
Chan cited Pintu, a crypto-exchange, as an example of Intudos' investment thesis.
Everyone thought everyone was saying, "You invested in this because it was trendy." But you need to remember that when Bitcoin dropped to $6,000.00, we met the founder. He said that Bitcoin was $3,000 six months later when we gave him the terms sheet. We knew that the founder was legitimate and were able to hire all the best talent, as there aren't many major unicorns who work in crypto.
Intudos portfolio founders include pulkam kampung (Indonesians who have worked and studied abroad but returned to start companies). It runs a program called Pulkam S.E.A. To mentor aspiring entrepreneurs, Turtle Fellowship is available. Intudo's first two funds received a third of their deals from American universities and the US tech community.
After signing checks, Intudo works closely alongside founders. All of the companies it invests in have made commercial deals through their network. Intudo's country-specific approach can also be a benefit during the pandemic. Intudo is able to continue holding in-person meetings almost every week with founders.
Yip said that the founder community has been through a difficult year, and last year because of COVID. Many of these founders had to make adjustments and corrections in their business plans. Our role as involved, in-market investor has been enhanced. Many of the companies that went under were not supported by an in-country partner.
He said, "I think our concentrated portfolio and our organized approach is something that is appreciated also by the founder community, so that's definitely something that we intend to repeat going into Fund III."
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