<article>Singapore-based <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=GBCI+Ventures">GBCI Ventures</a> has closed its $100-million smart city fund, according to its co-founder and CEO.</article>

Singapore-based <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=GBCI+Ventures">GBCI Ventures</a> has closed its $100-million smart city fund, according to its co-founder and CEO.
In an interview with DEALSTREETASIA, Douglas Gan, CEO and co-founder of GBCI Ventures, said that the fund secured the capital commitments in January. GBCI&#8217;s investors include a Chinese corporate venture capital firm and family offices from Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China.
Gan said he plans to fully deploy the fund by October this year. Over $30 million has already been invested in less than five companies from mainland China. Its ticket sizes are $5-10 million, with room for follow-on investment.
Gan added that he has been scouting for companies from Israel, India, China and the US which are close to or have begun commercialisation. GBCI is also gravitating towards technology such as blockchain that seeks to build &#8220;trust&#8221; – an important component for the smart city ecosystem to be effective.
&#8220;I think we&#8217;re entering a season where the tech titans of blockchain are going to be born. The industry is maturing beyond the concept stage and is beginning to show real applications for blockchain,&#8221; said Gan.
The smart city fund will target the infrastructure sector, focusing on roads, homes, renewable energy and sustainability and vertical farming. It will also seek projects that can be deployed in the One Belt One Road (OBOR) markets.
Gan explained that these markets show a greater readiness to leapfrog compared to developed ones.
&#8220;Many of these OBOR markets already have access to Chinese funds, and are very open to development. As a result, infrastructure leapfrogging is going to be very significant compared to the developed cities like Tokyo and Singapore.&#8221;
Gan added: &#8220;Developed markets have a much tougher time adopting smart city projects because they have to re-work age-old systems and battle government regulations to push through large scale projects.&#8221;
GBCI Ventures will adopt a 20-year fund tenure to meet the patient capital needs of smart city startups. It is targeting to achieve 10x returns on its investments.
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The VC firm is scouting for companies from Israel, India, China and the US which are close to or have begun commercialisation in the smart city arena.

SG's GBCI Ventures closes $100m smart city fund, to deploy by Oct

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SG's GBCI Ventures closes $100m smart city fund, to deploy by Oct

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