East Ventures disburses $211m of fund for startups throughout 2022 – Companies

Singapore, Japan and Indonesia-based venture capital (VC) firm East Ventures revealed that it has delivered a larger number of total investments in 2022 than in 2021, disbursed for startups in various sectors and stages.

East Ventures closed a total of 105 deals in 2022, 85 of which are new portfolio, totaling around US$211 million in funds disbursed to startups in both early and growth stage.

“The investments were streamed into several sectors, such as e-commerce, direct-to-consumer and retail, financial technology [fintech], internet software and services, business-to-business [B2B], supply chain and logistics as well as agritech,” reads East Ventures statement released on Tuesday.

As of May 2022, East Ventures claimed to have raised a total of $550 million in funds for startups in the final close of its multistage fund. An overwhelming majority of that fund would be allocated to growth-stage deals.

From those $500 million, $400 million was planned for growth-stage start-ups and the other $150 million would go to early-stage companies.

“The fund remains focused on Indonesia and Southeast Asia startups,” reads the statement.

Read also: East Ventures raises $550m to fund Indonesian start-ups

The firm revealed that 2023 will be challenging and yet it maintains its belief and confidence in the strong fundamentals of Southeast Asia and Indonesia, saying: “The best drivers can still race even in a perfect storm. Strong rains and lashing winds will not change Southeast Asia’s strong fundamentals.”

Regardless, it suggested startup founders to be more prudent and skillful with their business decisions. East Ventures said it planned to navigate the year by talking to the founders, mapping and understanding their situation specifically before giving advice accordingly.

“In navigating crises and uncertainty, we will always support our portfolios and founders in any condition, as we have done for many years,” said the statement.

Read also: Yearender 2022: Revival of small start-ups amid downfall of tech giants

“Our focus has always been the founders. We believe in the right founder, the right driver who knows how to scale the business and use their abilities to remain competitive even in challenging times. Recession might be imminent, as the cycle has just started in 2022. This situation will probably lead to a challenging economic time in the next couple of years,” it added.

Nevertheless, the statement reads that the challenges in 2022 gave way to longer-term opportunities ahead, translating to long-term perspective as the main focus of its investment going forward.