Venturra Discovery Aims for Early Stage Startup Funding to Pre-Series A

Venture capitalist (VC) under the auspices of the Lippo Group, Venturra Capital, officially launched its subsidiary, Venturra Discovery, which will focus on funding early-stage startups (seed funding) to pre-series A in Southeast Asia.

Met at the launch, Director of Lippo Group John Riady revealed that the launch of Venturra Discovery opens more opportunities for companies to be more active in funding early-stage startups in Indonesia.

"We are very fortunate to be able to contribute to Indonesia's development because we see the potential to be more active not only in Series A and B funding, but in the early stages. We can't wait to see the results in the next few years," said John.

Another reason Venturra Discovery was launched was that it was gap funding gap between early-stage VCs and series A stages and above. Based on data quoted by Venturra Capital, the condition of VCs, which focused on early-stage funding in 2014, was able to inject $50 thousand-500 thousand per one company. However, gap big is more pronounced in VC in the series A stage and beyond.

This condition reversed in 2018 where currently VCs that focus on series A can disburse $1-3 million per investment. Gap In fact, it was experienced by VCs who were active in the initial to pre-series A funding stages.

"Tech ecosystem used to be unprepared, but the technology industry in recent years has grown rapidly. Of course there will be many problems that want to be addressed, so we are working with more founder, “explained Venturra Capital's Managing Partner, Rudy Ramawy.

For this reason, Venturra Discovery focuses on funding for startups from the early to pre-series A stages in Southeast Asia. The company targets 30-40 portfolios with the amount per investment ranging from $200 thousand-500 thousand. The total investment prepared is $15 million (approximately 223 billion Rupiah), purely from Lippo Group pockets.

“We want to invest in the agnostic sector. Currently there are five (deal), i.e. 1 company healthcare, 2 consumer, 1 enterprise solutions, and 1 incubator. This is the right moment for acceleration, and we want fill the gap with the launch of this VC," added Venturra Discovery Partner Raditya Pramana.

Venturra Capital was founded in 2015 with an initial investment of $150 million. To date, Venturra has disbursed investment for funding of $600 million with growth since its first investment of 3,1 times.

This independent VC has invested in various companies in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. There are already 22 companies that have received Venturra funding, including Ruang Guru, Fabelio, and Medigo.