<article>China’s largest angel fund <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/tag/ZhenFund/">ZhenFund</a> has said that it has started to seriously turn its attention towards Indonesia for investment opportunities to capitalize on the market’s huge potential.</article>

China’s largest angel fund <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/tag/ZhenFund/">ZhenFund</a> has said that it has started to seriously turn its attention towards Indonesia for investment opportunities to capitalize on the market’s huge potential.
In an exclusive interview with DEALSTREETASIA, Tian Yi, ZhenFund’s head of international investment, said that the firm has recently injected capital into two undisclosed local startups, and is looking for more deal flows in the country.
&#8220;We will be coming more often to Jakarta to find them,&#8221; Yi said.
He explained that in the past, ZhenFund had focused on merely helping its Chinese portfolio companies expand to the Indonesia market with the help of local partners. However, the firm now believes it is necessary to start making direct investments in local teams.
“In the future, there will be more huge business opportunities that come with heavy challenges and require local entrepreneurs. So we need to find local founders with local know-how and local resource to do it,” he said.
Based in Beijing, ZhenFund was founded in 2011 in collaboration with Sequoia Capital China. It now boasts around $1.2 billion under management and over 700 portfolio companies, including over 10 unicorns.
In China, it prides itself on its ability to identify promising startups early and write them their first cheque. It also makes pre-Series A and Series A investments.
For Indonesia, however, the plan is to be more flexible, with ticket sizes that range from $1 million to $10 million.
&#8220;In China, we always do the angel round, but in this market, especially for the local startups, we don’t know people very well and we cannot reference check very well. We prefer to do the second cheque or the third cheque. That means maybe pre-A round, an A round or A+ round,&#8221; Yi said.
Yi added that logistics and fintech are among the sectors that are of particular interest to ZhenFund. The venture capital firm will be investing in Indonesia from its US dollar fund.
According to a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year, ZhenFund is seeking to raise $190 million for a fifth venture fund.
Over the last few years a lot of money from China have been poured into Indonesian startups, most notably from the country&#8217;s top tech giants like Tencent and Alibaba. Tencent is known to be a backer in Go-Jek, while Alibaba is an investor in Tokopedia. Meanwhile, Alibaba&#8217;s financial affiliate Ant Financial, is a minority shareholder in another of Indonesia&#8217;s unicorn, Bukalapak.
As far as VC firms are concerned, a host of Chinese players have injected capital into Indonesian startups including ATM Capital, K2 Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners.
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The venture capital firm now believes it is necessary to start making direct investments in Indonesian startups.

China's early-stage investor ZhenFund trains sights on Indonesian startups

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China's early-stage investor ZhenFund trains sights on Indonesian startups

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