Exclusive: Expara mulls new fund, hikes EV-III vehicle size to $21.5m

By Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc

March 29, 2017

Southeast Asia-focussed early-stage venture investor Expara is looking to launch a new fund in 2017, a top executive with the firm told DEALSTREETASIA.

Douglas Abrams, Expara’s managing director, said, the firm was in discussions about establishing the fund, without giving further details.

“If we do launch a new fund, it will be invested in parallel with Expara Ventures III,” he added. Expara Ventures III (EV-III) was launched in 2015 and is actively investing.

Abrams revealed that EV-III had a corpus of S$5 million and had closed 21 investments. However, the fund is still open for investment up to S$30 million ($21.5 million).

EV-III has an active investment period of five years, making seed stage (S$250,000 average) and acceleration investments (S$15,000 average). Seed stage funding accounts for about half of its investments.

“EV-III makes financial investments while our acceleration programmes are separate from EV-III and are financed by Expara operating companies in Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. EV-III does participate in investments into the startups in our accelerator programmes. As Expara operates both a venture fund and accelerator programs, we are able to provide our startups with both investment and mentorship,” said Abrams.

Expara, in partnership with Microsoft, opened the first venture-funded accelerator in Vietnam in 2015, the CLAS – Expara Vietnam Accelerator. It has completed the second batch with eight graduating startups, four of which received a grant of $10,000 each from EV-III.

The teams are agritech startup Agrhub, communications platform AZStack, global multi-platform media company Emily Labs and software provider Wedidit Solutions.

AZStack has also been invested by Captii Ventures, while some others are progressing with venture capital fundraising. Book reading app Checkit is raising $300,000 with commitments from two investors. Wiads, a wifi marketing company, is expanding to north Vietnam as well as nine provinces across the country. They have signed partnership agreement with CMC Telecom for cross-selling products, and are expecting to close investments within next month.

Following the success of the first acceleration programme in Vietnam, Expara will be launching a new accelerator in 2017 in partnership with RMIT Vietnam. The accelerator will leverage the partners’ expertise in tertiary education and entrepreneurship mentoring to help grow successful startups in the country.

Also read:

Vietnamese influencer platform Hiip raises funding from Expara, others

Exclusive: Expara Vietnam Accelerator to come in as first investor in graduating startups

Singapore Reporter/s

In Singapore, we are looking to double our reporting team by this year-end to comprehensively cover the fast-moving world of funded startups and VC, PE & M&A deals. We want reporters who can tell our readers what is really happening in these sectors and why it matters to markets, companies and consumers. The ability to write precisely and urgently is crucial for these roles. Ideal candidates must have to ability to work in a collaborative, dynamic, and fast-changing environment. We want our new hires to be digitally savvy and ready to experiment with new forms of storytelling. Most importantly, we are looking for hard-hitting reporters who work well in a team. Collaboration and collegiality are a must.

Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).

Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).   

  • A reporter to track companies/startups that have raised private capital, and have the potential to become unicorns. SEA currently has over 40 companies with a valuation of over $100 million and under $1 billion.
  • A reporter who can get behind the scenes and reveal how funding rounds are put together, or why they’ve failed to materialise. She/he in this role will largely focus on long-format stories. 
  • A journalist to track special situations funds, distressed debt and private credit (from the PE angle) across Asia.
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Singapore Reporter/s

In Singapore, we are looking to double our reporting team by this year-end to comprehensively cover the fast-moving world of funded startups and VC, PE & M&A deals. We want reporters who can tell our readers what is really happening in these sectors and why it matters to markets, companies and consumers. The ability to write precisely and urgently is crucial for these roles. Ideal candidates must have to ability to work in a collaborative, dynamic, and fast-changing environment. We want our new hires to be digitally savvy and ready to experiment with new forms of storytelling. Most importantly, we are looking for hard-hitting reporters who work well in a team. Collaboration and collegiality are a must.

Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).

Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).   

  • A reporter to track companies/startups that have raised private capital, and have the potential to become unicorns. SEA currently has over 40 companies with a valuation of over $100 million and under $1 billion.
  • A reporter who can get behind the scenes and reveal how funding rounds are put together, or why they’ve failed to materialise. She/he in this role will largely focus on long-format stories. 
  • A journalist to track special situations funds, distressed debt and private credit (from the PE angle) across Asia.
APPLY NOW