<article>Indonesia’s most recently launched venture capital firm Simona Ventures says it is targeting to raise up to $10 million for its first fund which will back women founders.</article>

Indonesia’s most recently launched venture capital firm Simona Ventures says it is targeting to raise up to $10 million for its first fund which will back women founders.
Launched earlier this year, Simona Ventures describes itself as a platform that provides access and opportunities to empower businesses and initiatives that solve the gender gap challenges.
The firm, which is currently in talks with both local and foreign potential LPs for the fund, says it is looking to work with investors that share the same passion and concern for impact investment.
“Ideally we’d like to work together with someone who doesn’t only want to invest and gain considerate amount of return, but also believe in the mission and the importance of supporting women founders. It’s a long term commitment, so if they don’t believe in the social impact that we’re making, then it’s not going to work,” Simona Ventures managing partner Putri Izzati told DEALSTREETASIA.
The firm gathers a network of mentors and industry leaders, runs capacity building programmes, and funds startups through angel and seed investment.
As far as its investment thesis is concerned, Simona says it will look to target early and seed stage businesses, both tech and non-tech, that are led by women, or aim to solve the gender gap challenges in the long run. Its ticket size will range from $50,000-400,000, with an average of $200,000, and views positive and measurable social and economic impact as key metrics to look out for.
“We invest in businesses or initiatives that put women as the vanguard, which we believe in the long run will benefit the society at large. We will focus on efforts that drive mindset changes towards gender parity. We will also utilize gender-lens investing tools and mechanism to assess the best candidates of investee,” Izzati said.
While it does not expect to make any investment until later this year or early next year, Simona is already making strategic efforts to source prospective startups by teaming up with Digitaraya, an Indonesian accelerator backed by Google Developers Launchpad, to launch an all-women founders accelerator programme.
The programme, which has selected 11 startups from 10 countries across the APAC region, is looking to put the spotlight on women leaders in tech to inspire the next generation of women entrepreneurs, as well as introduce them to the Indonesian market, providing access to local and regional investors, and connecting them to prominent local players.
For Simona, the programme with Digitaraya will be followed by other similar activities in collaboration with other partners across the region. Ultimately, these programmes serve as pipelines to help us find leads on which startups we want to invest in, Izzati said.
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Simona targets to invest in both tech and non-tech ventures, that are led by women, or aim to solve the gender gap challenges.

Indonesia's Simona Ventures eyes $10m debut fund to back women founders

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Indonesia's Simona Ventures eyes $10m debut fund to back women founders

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