Gojek will contribute 20% as a limited partner, with the remaining amount to be raised from external investors. Go-Ventures followed a similar arrangement when it debuted its $200 million fund about three years ago.
Buoyed by strong performance, most of the first fund’s limited partners are committing capital to the second fund, DealStreetAsia has learned.
According to one source, Go-Ventures’ first fund is generating an internal rate of return of 60%, making it one of the best performing funds in Southeast Asia. But it has yet to generate distributions to paid-in capital – or the ratio of money returned to limited partners relative to contributions.
Go-Ventures’ second fund is expected to see a mix of limited partners, including sovereign wealth funds, tech companies, family offices, insurance companies and endowment funds from around the world.
Go-Ventures, which targets early-stage startups in developing markets, has about 25 companies in its portfolio.
While most of its investees are in Indonesia, the fund has also deployed capital in India, Malaysia, Vietnam and Uganda. Investments include India’s Mobile Premier League, Rebel Foods and Mall91; Indonesia’s Halodoc, Pluang and e-Fishery; Malaysia’s FoodMarketHub and Uganda’s SafeBoda.
Some of Go-Ventures’ portfolio companies have integrated their services with Gojek’s, such as social crowdfunding platform Kitabisa with GoGive; insurance platform Pasar Polis with GoSure; micro-savings platform Pluang with GoInvestasi; telemedicine app Halodoc with GoMed; and digital media platform Kumparan with GoNews.
This integration also helps Go-Ventures win deals in the region – a strategy employed by Chinese tech companies Tencent and Xiaomi. Chinese venture company Shunwei Capital, for instance, is backed by Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, and is known to tap into Xiaomi’s network to gain new clients.
Apart from Go-Ventures, Gojek also invests in companies aligned with its own operations.
Its regional rival Grab operates a venture arm called Grab Ventures, which put up US$250 million in 2018 for investments in Indonesian startups. The ride-hailing company also runs a startup accelerator called Grab Ventures Velocity.