30/11/2018 – Singapore-headquartered early-stage venture capital firm Golden Gate Ventures (GGV) has announced it will allocate RM75 million (about US$18 million) of its third fund for Malaysian startups and open an office in the country.
Its Malaysian office is located in Kuala Lumpur and will be the venture capital firm’s third and largest location in Southeast Asia, after Singapore and Indonesia.
According to Vinnie Lauria, this move will solidify its on-the-ground-presence in Malaysia, where the venture capital firm already has several tech companies in its portfolio, including GoQuo, ServisHero, Codapay, and Funding Societies.
Besides, GGV also have investments in startups that have expanded to Malaysia, such as Singapore p2p marketplace Carousell and is helping its portfolio startup on-demand startup Homage to expand to the country.
“The dollars we’ve invested in Malaysia are already significant, which makes the country the natural location for our regional expansion,” said Lauria.
It has previously invested about a quarter of its US$60 million Fund II – closed in 2016 into Malaysian startups. After opening its office in Kuala Lumpur, the vc firm will be spending more time and capital in the Malaysian market.
Golden Gate Ventures hit the final close of its third fund at US$100 million in mid-September. The fund was oversubscribed and anchored by existing LPs, including Temasek Holdings, South Korea’s Hanwha, Naver Corp and EE Capital.
New LPs included Japanese entrepreneur Taizo Son’s Mistletoe and Korea Venture Investment Corp.
Founded in 2011, Golden Gate Ventures has built a portfolio comprising about 40 companies in over seven Asian countries in the consumer internet space. In Malaysia, it has backed e-commerce startup GoQuo and on-demand home services platform ServisHero.
Some of the firm’s exits so far include Singapore’s grocery startup Redmart, Taiwan’s Woomoo, Indonesia-based fintech startup Mapan (formerly known as Ruma), carpooling startup TemanJalan and Thailand’s dating app Noonswoon.
