Intudo Ventures, an Indonesia-focused VC firm founded by Eddy Chan and Patrick Yip, today announced the close of its second fund at US$50 million.
Among the firm’s past investments in Indonesia are payment gateway firm Xendit and co-working chain CoHive.
Its second fund recently backed used car sales platform BeliMobilGue.
What sets Intudo apart, according to Chan, is its exclusive focus on Indonesia, where other funds tend to “cover Southeast Asia from a pan-Asia strategy,” Chan told KrASIAin an interview.
The fund’s LPs are mostly US based Chan says. He has a strong network there due to an early investment in PayPal. And now PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund is backing Intudo.
Chan and Yip stress that their LP base also draws from various conglomerate families in Indonesia, without being overly exposed to one group or another. This, Chan stresses gave them an advantage with founders who prefer to stay independent without aligning themselves with the interests of a corporate venture fund early on.
Intudo’s first fund only launched in 2017, and Chan declined to share the fund’s performance and exit deals. “It’s a very young portfolio,” he said, and that he expects to “see some interesting liquidity” in the next 12-24 months.
Intudo’s portfolio contains startups some other VCs have called “lifestyle” investments. They include an indoor cycling fitness startup and a hotel chain.
“That’s a feedback we get,” says Chan. “Early on in any ecosystem, it’s about e-commerce, lightweight tech; things like tech-enabled brands and online-to-offline channels, it’s not the next SpaceX and Palantir. Branding is important, as long as we see the possibility of scale, some brands are incredibly valuable. The advantage of being a local founder on the ground, plays out much more when there’s an offline component.”
“Our edge in this scenario is when we can bring offline assets and advantages to our portfolio compaies,” adds Yip. “These take years to develop. Physical presence, government relations. We bring those years of relationships into the companies we invest in.”
Editor: Ben Jiang