Indonesian VC firm SMDV, an affiliate of diversified conglomerate Sinarmas Group, is targeting later-stage investments as it prepares to put together a second fund in the early part of this year.
In an interaction with DealStreetAsia, SMDV managing partner Roderick Purwana said the fund will be “sizable enough to do larger deals, for Series B or beyond,” while declining to disclose the vehicle size. The size of the predecessor vehicle also remains undisclosed.
The SMDV fund will be raised from Sinarmas family offices. At present, SMDV is not looking at raising capital from external investors.
SMDV, which is part of the Sinarmas Group, follows a semi-independent fund structure where the focus is on financial returns, unlike a corporate VC arm that is more aligned to the strategic interests of the parent company.
In an earlier interview, Purwana had explained, “We are not exactly a corporate VC. We are flexible in our investment and focus on areas where there are financial gains to be made.”
The new vehicle is seeking stage-agnostic opportunities with a bias towards more mature companies in Indonesia.
“We can see the path to profitability in the later-stage more clearly. We are also more suitable for the risk profile as these startups are close to sustainability,” Purwana told DealStreetAsia.
SMDV has so far invested in 20 startups, predominantly at the early stage. It has largely invested in Indonesian companies and has backed some regional and global startups as well. Some of its overseas bets include Bangkok-headquartered payment platform Omise, Singapore’s payment and cash management Wallex and US-based mobile deep learning Element, among others.
In 2020, SMDV has mostly focused on stepping up investments in its existing portfolio firms. “In 2020, we were cautious about adding many new investments. We preferred to help [existing] founders through the crisis. This year, we see some will recover and so we might look at new investments in the second half [of the year],” he said.
SMDV's portfolio companies
| Startups | Description | Investment stage | Lead Investor | Invest since | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Element | develops and distributes mobile-based platforms for digital identity. | seed | No | 2014 |
| 2 | TADA | SaaS, customer retention platform | Series A | No | 2015 |
| 3 | Omise | Bangkok-headquartered online payments platform that enables businesses to seamlessly and securely accept payments over the internet. | Series A-B | Yes for Series A | 2015 |
| 4 | Happyfresh | online grocery platform | Series A-B-C | No | 2015, 2016, 2019 |
| 5 | Snapchart | big data analytics | seed | No | 2016 |
| 6 | Orami | female-focused shopping platform | series A | Yes for Series A | 2016 |
| 7 | CoHive | coworking space | Seed | No | 2017 |
| 8 | Sorabel | fashion ecommerce | Series B | No | 2017 |
| 9 | Warung Pintar | a micro retail technology company. | Seed-A | No | 2018, 2019 |
| 10 | Waresix | a logistics platform for freight-forwarding, warehouse, and land transportation | Seed-Series A | No | 2018, 2019 |
| 11 | Eko | London & Bangkok based company focused on building tools that unlock the full potential of mobile in the workplace. | Series B | Yes | 2018 |
| 12 | Fore Coffee | coffee chain shop | Series A | No | 2019 |
| 13 | Wahyoo | a technology company that provides added value and benefits for stalls in Indonesia. | seed | No | 2019 |
| 14 | Kedai Sayur | a company that serves orders through the delivery of various types of kitchen needs ranging from Vegetables. | seed | No | 2019 |
| 15 | Aruna | Integrated fishery platform | seed | Yes | 2019 |
| 16 | StickEarn | connects consumer drivers and brands looking for exposure effectively with their modern approach. | Series A | Yes | 2019 |
| 17 | YummyCorp | a cloud kitchen management and online catering company that operates a network of delivery-only kitchens. | Series A | Yes | 2019 |
| 18 | Waste4Change | waste management solution | - | No | 2019 |
| 19 | Hactiv8 | coding boot camp in Indonesia that turns absolute beginners into job-ready developers. | seed | No | 2020 |
| 20 | Ula | a marketplace platform that focusses on modernizing distribution and credit processes in the traditional retail sector. | seed | No | 2020 |
| 21 | Wallex | Singapore's International payments and cash management for businesses - simplified | Series A | Yes | 2020 |
While SMDV is sector-agnostic, it has closely followed emerging themes such as e-commerce, grocery, logistics, payments, and edtech.
In 2018, SMDV tied up with East Ventures and Yahoo! Japan Capital to establish EV Growth to focus solely on growth-stage investments. EV Growth currently has 19 companies in its portfolio across the Southeast Asian market. EV Growth is also poised to launch its second fund this year seeking to raise $250 million, similar to its predecessor.
Purwana said SMDV’s shift in investment focus will not result in it competing with EV Growth as it is looking at co-investment opportunities with the latter.
“SMDV’s strategy is also to co-invest with others. Hence, we will complement EV Growth in the investments,” he said.
SMDV and EV Growth have together invested in micro-retail tech firm Warung Pintar and logistics platform Waresix. Through EV Growth, SMDV also invested in travel unicorn Traveloka, beauty e-commerce Sociolla, and edtech platform Ruangguru.
EV Growth's portfolio companies
| Name | Description | Investment in stage | Lead investor | Year | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Omise | Bangkok-headquartered online payments platform that enables businesses to seamlessly and securely accept payments over the internet. | Series B | No | 2016 |
| 2 | Sociolla | Indonesia's beauty e-commerce platform | Series C, Series D | Yes | 2018, 2019 |
| 3 | CoHive | Indonesia's coworking space | Series A | No | 2018 |
| 4 | Moka | Point of sales (POS) -- Gojek has acquired | Series B | Yes | 2018 |
| 5 | Tokopedia | Indonesia's marketplace platform | Series G | No | 2018 |
| 6 | IDN Media | Indonesia's media platform | Series C | Yes | 2019 |
| 7 | Warung Pintar | Indonesia's micro retail technology company. | Series A | No | 2019 |
| 8 | ShopBack | Singapore's digital loyalty and discovery platform e-commerce company offering a smarter way to shop. | Series B | No | 2019, 2020 |
| 9 | Traveloka | Indonesia's online travel aggregrator | Private equity & Venture round | No | 2019, 2020 |
| 10 | Limakilo | Indonesia's agritech startup | Series B | No | 2019 |
| 11 | KoinWorks | Indonesia's fintech P2P platform | Series B | Yes | 2019 |
| 12 | Waresix | Indonesia's logistics platform for freight-forwarding, warehouse, and land transportation. | Series A, Series B | Yes | 2019, 2020 |
| 13 | 99.co | Singapore's property marketplace platform | Series B | No | 2019 |
| 14 | Fuse Pro | Indonesia's Insurtech platform | Series A | 2019 | |
| 15 | Sendo | Vietnamese e-commerce retailer and online commerce platform | Series C | No | 2019 |
| 16 | Mekari | Indonesia's SaaS company for productivity support | Series C | Yes | 2019 |
| 17 | Ruangguru | Indonesia's edtech platform | Series C | No | 2019 |
| 18 | Homage | Singapore's trusted senior home care marketplace | Series B | Yes | |
| 19 | Bibit | Indonesia's fintech focused on wealth investment | Series A | No | 2021 |
SMDV’s tech investment style
Sinarmas-backed SMDV prefers to follow a passive-style investment approach picking minority interests in startups.
“We think startups need to prove they can sustain financially. Then, we might consider a strategic approach. Otherwise, if we acquire the company and it does not survive, it will be fruitless for us,” Purwana said, about the investment style.
Sinarmas Group’s business interests span agribusiness, pulp and paper, telecom services, finance and banking, mining and energy, property, and other services. According to Forbes 2020, the Widjaja family’s total assets were estimated at around $11.9 billion.
Purwana foresees some integration between the group’s mainstream business units and the tech startup investments particularly in the areas of imaging technology or drones for the agribusiness sector, beauty e-commerce for the paper business [packaging], among others.
