Siemer Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of eponymous US merchant bank, has co-invested alongside Recruit Strategic Partners, the corporate venturing unit of Japan vertical media company Recruit, and GMO Venture Partners, the corporate venturing unit of Japan GMO Internet Group, have all made a strategic investment in Ardent Capital, a Thailand-based venture unit and incubator funding e-commerce and digital media start-ups in Southeast Asia.
The investment marks the first round of external funding for Ardent Capital. The round includes additional investment from the Ardent management team as well as several high-profile Southeast Asian entrepreneurs, it has been reported.
The deal means that some new talent will be brought on board including Paul Santos from Singapore incubator Wavemaker Labs, who is joining the Ardent board of directors.
The Ardent founding team is made up a group of entrepreneurs active in South East Asia including Paul Srivorakul, John Srivorakul, Tom Srivorakul and Piers Bennett who have founded and exited businesses in the region including Ensogo and Admax. Adrian Vanzyl joined the team as co-founder and CEO in January 2012.
The funding will be used to make additional investments though Ardent Ventures as well as fund its incubator, Ardent Labs. Ardent Capital reportedly made six investments in 2012 with three deals already completed this year. One of its 2013 investments includes Singapore tech start-up news service and events company, e27, which raised about $760,000 in a seed round. Other South East Asia investors that participated in the early stage round, included B Dash Ventures from Japan, Pinehurst Advisors from Taiwan and Dan Neary of Facebook Asia in Singapore, said news reports.
Also part of Ardent is AGP, an advisory firm based in Bangkok, Thailand. The firm, a portfolio company of Ardent Capital, was established in March 2013 to assist regional and global businesses to invest in and acquire post start-up technology companies developed in Southeast Asia. AGP focuses primarily on transactional e-commerce and digital advertising companies.