SeedPlus, a fund launched by Singapore-based venture capital firm Jungle Ventures, has raised more than S$25m ($18m) from limited partners including networking equipment manufacturer Cisco, the Economic Times reported on Monday.
The fund’s other LPs include Eight Roads Ventures, which invests as a VC branch of financial services conglomerate Fidelity, and International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of multilateral financial institution World Bank.
IFC made a $2m commitment to SeedPlus in November 2016 and the fund’s other LPs include Infocomm Investments, the investment arm of the Singapore government’s Infocomm Development Authority, as well as family office RNT Associates and VC firm Accel Partners (India).
Cisco made its contribution to SeedPlus through its Cisco Investments unit. The S$25m figure represents the fund’s hard cap.
SeedPlus was launched in May 2016 and focuses on Southeast Asia and India-based seed-stage startups operating in sectors including e-commerce and marketplaces, mobile, fintech, cybersecurity, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
The fund aims to take part in five or six deals per year, having already made five investments to date. It provides between S$500,000 and S$1m to startups, after which Jungle Ventures and Accel are potential follow-on investors at series A stage or later.
Tiang Lim Foo, partner at SeedPlus, told technology news site TechCrunch: “We already have strategic downstream investors for some of the startups we work with, [these new partners] give them a preview on distribution – what needs to be done if you enter India, or the US, for example as a business.
“We have LPs who are global by nature so can help you enter these markets [while] from a technical advice standpoint they are valuable too.”