Openspace Ventures Closes Third Fund at Hard Cap of US$200M

Openspace Ventures is pleased to announce the final close of Openspace Ventures III, L.P. on 26 Feb 2021, with total subscriptions accepted at US$200 million. Openspace now manages committed capital of US$425 million across three funds.

“2021 is poised to be a strong year for Openspace Ventures and the Southeast Asian ecosystem,” said Shane Chesson, Co-founder and Partner of Openspace. “Companies are scaling faster than ever and reaching key milestones on the path to liquidity or exit. This progress helped Openspace fully raise Fund 3 in 8 months during a pandemic. We thank investors for their confidence in us as we aim to continue to deliver superior returns and positively transform Southeast Asian economies in the long run.” The firm counts global institutional powerhouses such as Temasek, StepStone Group and Sofina in its highly-regarded stable of repeat limited partners, including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, university endowments, and insurance companies. Fund 3 saw the addition of new global investors including European institutions DEG and Norfund, US-based 57 Stars and Mizuho, a leading global bank headquartered in Japan.

Established in 2014, the Singapore-based venture fund manager is a pioneer in the region. It has 33 investments across key sectors including logistics, fintech, agtech, edtech, healthtech, cleantech and B2B SaaS. Selected leading companies invested at Series A include Halodoc (health – Indonesia), Kumu (consumer tech – Philippines), TaniHub (agtech – Indonesia), Finnomena (fintech – Thailand), FinAccel (fintech – Indonesia), Gojek (transport, logistics, fintech – Indonesia) and Biofourmis (health – Singapore/US). Despite COVID-19, Openspace’s companies raised more than US$2 billion in capital in 2020, bringing total follow-on capital to US$6.5 billion to date.

Hian Goh, Co-founder and Partner of Openspace, said, “The team and all the portfolio founders worked tirelessly through the unprecedented crisis of 2020 and it showed. We executed two successful full exits last year and made four investments out of Fund 3 in Indonesia and Thailand in the midst of the pandemic.”

Openspace’s team of 25 spans 12 nationalities. The firm has offices in Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila, and is in the process of setting up an office in Ho Chi Minh City. The VC’s first and second funds, launched in 2014 and 2017, respectively, are both performing in the top quartile against global peers, according to Cambridge Associates and Preqin benchmarks.

“We continue to see enormous untapped potential in the market,” said Jessica Huang Pouleur, who joined Openspace as Executive Director in 2020 to lead OSV+, the firm’s first growth fund targeted at mid-stage tech opportunities in the region. “The Southeast Asian startup ecosystem continues to evolve and is now producing a high volume of attractive mid-stage investment opportunities. We are proud to be a meaningful contributor to the region’s tech ecosystem’s evolution as we continue to back strong start-ups and participate in their next phase of growth.”