Alpha JWC Ventures has announced to close its second fundraising round at $123 million or around 1.7 trillion Rupiah. Since starting the second round in mid-2018, Fund 2 had been closed by “oversubscribed” – the number of investors who have a keen interest to join is exceeding the available slots. In addition, almost all investors in Fund 1 are rejoined this round.
The money collected from Fund 2 has been invested since the end of 2018 to 14 startups. One of the biggest investments has been Kopi Kenangan in November 2018 at $8 million or around 121 billion Rupiah. To date, they already listed 33 startups in their portfolio.
“To date, our team’s support in the journey and its development has been an important factor of our startup portfolio’s succession, and our focus lays on the business fundamentals of each company. We always remind all founders and startup teams the importance of proper unit economics calculations and financial accountability from the first day they joined Alpha JWC. We believe this approach is essential for the long-term sustainability of startups,” Alpha JWC Ventures’ Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Chandra Tjan explained.
In portfolio management, the company managed to use a hands-on approach in various business lines, from recruitment, marketing, and legal support.
“We also avoid investing in similar companies or any competitors to our previous portfolios. Our principle is to support our startups directly and intensively which means we have to choose the right founders and continue to help them throughout the startup journey,” Alpha JWC Ventures’ Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Jefrey Joe added.
To date, Alpha JWC has 20 team members. This year they added three new partners, namely Alan Hellawell (former CSO of SEA Group), Erika Go (former Principal of Alpha JWC), and Eko Kurniadi (former VP of Investment Creador). In addition, they have now launched a permanent office in Singapore to be able to reach more startups in Southeast Asia.
“We’re actively eyeing Vietnam’s digital industry for funding opportunities. As one of the fastest growing economies in the world, we believe Vietnam is the next largest market in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, we’ve invested in three companies in Vietnam and currently exploring some other startups,” Chandra added.
In its debut in 2016, Alpha JWC Ventures has launched Fund 1 worth $50 million or around 700 billion Rupiah. The funds were channeled to 23 startups in Southeast Asia, mostly in Indonesia. In less than 4 years, Fund 1 is claimed to have grown to 3.2x in Net Asset Value (NAV). Alpha JWC has also successfully made two exits, the Spacemob coworking space network (acquisition by WeWork in 2017) and the DealStreetAsia business media (acquisition by Nikkei in 2019).
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian