Leading Thai venture capitals are parading through Creative Ventures’ second fund of US$50 million in an attempt to get into deep tech startups in Silicon Valley, Israel and Taiwan.
“A second funding round worth US$50 million has already closed, faster than the expected date of the first quarter 2019, and we are ready to invest in deep tech startups. The venture will expand to Israel after Silicon Valley,” said.
According to Poonyatorn Suthipongchai, managing partner of Creative Ventures, the second funding round has already closed faster than the expected date of the first quarter 2019, so the company keeps on selecting to invest in series A funding, worth over $1 million per deal.
Creative Ventures will invest in startups in Silicon Valley, the hub of deep tech creating the mega trend innovations. Three focus areas of the investment are the business to solve workforce shortage in the industry, problems of agriculture and food due to the climate change or global warming, as well as technology for taking care aging people.
Investors of the fund are both corporations and individuals: Itthipat
“Tob” Peeradechapan, chief executive of Taokaenoi Food and Marketing; Bhurit BhiromBhakdi, chairman of Singha Ventures; Pirachai Bencharongkul, investor director of BCH Ventures (under Benchachinda Holding Group);
Chalermchai Mahagitsiri, chief executive of Thoresen Thai Agencies and founder of Visionity Ventures and Moonshot Ventures; Chanond Ruangkritya, president and chief executive of Ananda Development; and Sitthichai Leesawadtrakul.
Mr. Poonyatorn said the company is planning to set up an office in Israel where is located by high potential deep tech startups in cybersecurity, agriculture, healthcare. It will also have offices in Singapore and Taiwan to help portfolio companies expand to Asia.
The second fund round aims for returns within 7-10 years, with a rate capital gains is higher than listed in stock exchange, and it will launch the third fund, worth US$250 million within 4-5 years.
At present, half of the first fund, worth $11 million, has already been invested in 14 companies such as Dishcraft Robotics, which is developing robots for commercial kitchens, and ALICE Technologies, an AI for construction scheduling platform that has already been adopted by Ananda Development.
In order to draw investment, he said Thai startups must be in deep tech, scalable and have regional network rather than focus only local market. “If the startups that we invested overseas can support the Thai businesses, there will be technology transfer, empowering the economy of Thailand and collaboration among the startups,” he said.
