Jungle Ventures makes first close of Fund-III at $175M

Singapore-based Jungle Ventures has made the first close of its third fund, estimated at about $175 million, with the early-stage venture capital firm, which has made a string of bets in India, onboarding a number of marquee institutions as anchor investors.

Jungle Ventures, which counts online home design startup Livspace and B2B commerce and procurement software provider Moglix among its portfolio in India, has targeted a corpus of $220 million for Fund-III.

Founded in 2012 by Amit Anand and Anurag Srivastava, Jungle Ventures has brought on board German development finance institution DEG and Cisco Investments as its new limited partners (LPs) for its latest investment vehicle.

Temasek, the government of Singapore-backed investment company, and International Finance Corp, the private investment arm of the World Bank, which had backed Jungle Ventures’ previous fund, have again invested in the latest investment vehicle, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the developments.

Additionally, the family office of Singapore-based billionaire Kuok Khoon Hong, cofounder of Wilmar, one of the world’s largest palm oil producers, and John Kim, president of HomeAway, the Expedia Group-owned vacation rental major, have also come on board as investors, sources cited above told ET. The LPs also have the option of co-investing with Jungle Ventures in the fund’s portfolio companies. In India, the firm has primarily invested in ventures founded in Asia’s third-largest economy, but which have then expanded to Southeast Asia, among other regions.

“Fund-III is expected to be oversubscribed… The strategy is to make about 15-odd key investments from the fund… Each cheque size, therefore, will be proportionately larger, with a few more Series-B deals going forward,” a source told ET.

When contacted, the firm’s spokespersons declined to comment, citing confidentiality.

The Singapore-headquartered VC firm has already made about five investments from the new fund, but has announced only one till date – a $30-million equity financing round in customised software creator Engineer.ai, which also saw participation from DeepCore – the artificial intelligence-focused fund launched by SoftBank.

The development follows that of other early-stage funds that have either hit the fund-raising trail, or have announced their new investment vehicles. Earlier this month, Singapore-based DSG Consumer Partners launched its third flagship fund, while also announcing a buildout investment vehicle to back select portfolio companies.

Several of Jungle Ventures’ portfolio companies have raised significant growth funding in recent times, including Livspace, which scored $70 million from TPG Growth and Goldman Sachs, while Deskera raised $60 million in November last year.

The latest fund comes a little less than three years after the investment firm raised $100 million for its second fund,. It had raised its maiden fund in 2012, having raised $12 million for the same.

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