KB Investment, a subsidiary of South Korea-based financial services group KB Holding, has formed an investment fund with MDI Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of telecommunications firm Telkom Indonesia, DealStreetAsia has reported.
The companies intend to close the still unnamed vehicle at $100m by the end of 2020, Eric Yoo, a managing partner at KB Investment, told DealStreetAsia.
Founded in 2016, MDI Ventures has a 31-strong portfolio and has scored two exits. The latest move comes after it formed a $40m fund in partnership with another Telkom Indonesia subsidiary, Telkomsel, and fellow corporate venturing unit Singtel Innov8 in May this year.
KB Investment was formed in 1990 to make VC and private equity investments and currently has more than $1.4bn of assets under management, though it has no strategic aims beyond generating returns.
The joint venture will invest in Southeast Asia-based startups in their series A and B rounds, generally providing between $2m and $3m per deal, according to Yoo, who said it will also allocate about 20% of its capital to other markets, such as the US, Korea and Japan.
The fund will invest across multiple sectors and is interested in companies applying new technology to traditional industries. The companies will be co-general partners and KB Investment will contribute its share of the capital through its Global Platform Fund.
Yoo said: “We team up with MDI because we believe the support of the two corporate giants will be very important for startups in Southeast Asia. We are a financial giant, and Telkom is telco giant – there are a lot of things we can do to support startups through our group assets.”
