Asia PEVC, Author at AsiaPEVC.com

IFC To Invest $100m in Indonesia’s Subang Industrial Estate

The International Financial Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is providing $100 million in loan package to Indonesia’s Surya Semesta Internusa (SSIA), which is developing a new 2,000-hectare green state of the art industrial estate in Subang, West Java.

The development is set to provide over 34,000 jobs, according to an IFC statement.

Located along the Trans Java toll road network, the Subang industrial estate will provide modern infrastructure for both international and domestic manufacturing firms.

It is strategically positioned for access to the newly opened Kertajati International Airport and the Patimban Deep Sea Port currently being developed in Subang, a national strategic project.

SSIA believes that this first investment by IFC in the company will create markets that open up greater opportunities for the future of its new Subang City of Industry project.

“We are extremely pleased to partner with IFC for the development of the new Subang industrial estate,” said SSIA’s President Director, Johannes Suriadjaja. “In addition to providing long term capital, we believe our collaboration with IFC will help set a new sustainable green standard for the sector through the use of the latest technology, and spur other industrial estate developers to follow a similar path.”

In formally signing the deal at a ceremony in Bali, IFC CEO Philippe Le Houérou said IFC also planned to boost investments in the country’s tourism sector, in support of the Government of Indonesia’s efforts to accelerate tourism development in key destinations across the country.

“The tourism sector offers tremendous opportunity for the future growth of Indonesia,” he said. “For the country to unlock its true potential, tourism development must move increasingly beyond Bali to other destinations.”

Subang City of Industry is envisioned as a model for tomorrow’s industrial estate by becoming the first smart and sustainable industrial estate for customers and society in Indonesia. This is in line with SSIA’s vision for Building a Better Indonesia.

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A key feature of the new Subang estate will be its innovative green features, such as electric transportation, solar panels and water and power efficient technologies.

It will be the first industrial estate to promote IFC’s green buildings standards, with both SSIA and its manufacturing tenants aiming to achieve at least 20 percent savings in energy, water, and materials compared to other similar developments.

Singapore: Cloud Inventory Firm TradeGecko Secures $10M

TradeGecko, a global SaaS inventory and order management platform for small-medium businesses (SMBs), today announced a Series B investment of $10 million, led by TNB Aura Fund 1 and Aura Venture Fund, with Perle Ventures, and 33 Capital participating in the round.

This increases the total capital invested to date to over USD 20M. The proceeds raised will be used to grow TradeGecko’s product suite, providing a seamless commerce platform to thousands of commerce brands, and expanding to empower more commerce businesses around the world.

“In terms of feature-density, user experience, and quality of integrations, TradeGecko is the best-in-class B2B software-as-a-service provider in the inventory and order management space”, said Vicknesh R Pillay, Managing Partner of TNB Ventures and TNB Aura Fund 1. “We are pleased to back this standout player.”

“We see a massive opportunity to provide the back-end systems of SMB commerce on a global scale”, said Cameron Priest, CEO of TradeGecko. “With the rapid growth of SMBs around the world, partnering with Aura enables us to leverage their market knowledge and extensive network. With the latest funding, we will continue to invest in solving our customers most challenging operational challenges.”

TradeGecko was built with the vision of empowering millions of entrepreneurs to build the business of their dreams by providing a back-end platform to run the entire business operations of a growing commerce brand.

With global HQ based in Singapore and North American HQ in Toronto, the company powers the operational back-ends of leading SMB commerce brands including memobottle, Dead Studios, Brooklyn Bicycle Company, Maui and Sons, and Paula’s Choice Skincare.

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TradeGecko aims to free business owners from the operational complexity of running their business to spend more time building a brand their customers will love.

“The investment into TradeGecko is a great deal for our fund” commented Calvin Ng, Managing Director of Aura Group. “We are confident in the long-term prospects of the company and the team’s ability to continue executing strong and consistent growth of their revenues and unit economics.”

Singapore VC Amasia Backs Skillshare’s $28m Series C

New York-headquartered online learning portal Skillshare has raised $28 million in Series C funding round backed by Singapore and San Francisco-based venture capital firm Amasia.

The new round includes $20 million in equity funding as well as $8 million in venture debt. Union Square Ventures, who previously participated in Skillshare’s earlier funding rounds, led the equity portion of the financing. Also participating were Burda Principal Investments and Spero Ventures.

Skillshare said it will use the financing to accelerate growth and expand its learning ecosystem, which serves the growing independent workforce.

“This round comes at a time in our company’s history where we’re seeing a lot of momentum,” said Matt Cooper, CEO of Skillshare. “Over the last twelve months we’ve experienced greater than 100% revenue growth, much of which was driven by what we call the ‘Independent Class’”.

Currently, Skillshare’s platform boasts over 5 million users and over 20,000 classes taught by a network of 6,000 experts across dozens of fields.

“Skillshare’s subscription model and affordable price make its ever-growing catalog of classes broadly accessible,” said Albert Wenger, managing partner at Union Square Ventures. “That’s a powerful model as it keeps the price of marginal usage at zero, allowing members to try classes risk-free and explore new paths of learning across a wide number of disciplines. In that regard, it’s like a Netflix for learning”.

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Of late, that thriving online community has become increasingly global as well, the startup said. Asia, particularly, has shown huge potential, with paid members from the region growing by more than 400 per cent over the last eighteen months.

Skillshare raised its Series B round in May of 2016. To date, the company has raised a total of $42 million in equity financing.

SoftBank’s Vision Fund Leads $121m Funding in Camera Firm Light

Advanced computational imaging firm Light has secured $121 million in Series D funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund and backed by consumer camera giant Leica Cambera AG.

The latest funding round brings Light’s total amount raised from investors to date to $186 million. The SoftBank Vision Fund investment will be made in tranches, subject to certain conditions.

Light’s groundbreaking imaging platform enables machines to see like humans do, using sophisticated algorithms to combine images from multiple camera modules into a single high-quality image and enabling highly-accurate 3D depth extraction.

The company said the new funding will allow it expand the reach of its imaging platform beyond consumer photography and into security, robotic, automotive, aerial and industrial imaging applications.

Later this year, the first mobile phone incorporating Light’s technology will be available to consumers around the world. It will shatter the expectations of mobile photography.

“Light’s technology is a revelation, showing that several small, basic camera modules, combined with highly powerful software, can produce images that rival those produced by cameras costing and weighing orders of magnitude more,” said Dave Grannan, Light CEO and Co-founder.

Grannan added that the support of SoftBank Vision Fund as a strategic investor means “this technology will see more of the world sooner than we could have ever imagined”.

Light’s foundational technologies, including its Lux Capacitor camera control chip and its Polar Fusion Engine for multi-image processing, are licensed for use in applications like smartphones, security, automotive, robotics, drones, and more.

“Light’s highly accurate depth mapping can be used to create rich and complex environments for a wide-range of applications including augmented reality,” the company said in a statement.

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Akshay Naheta, Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers, describes Light as a world leader in computational imaging.

“By replacing mechanical complexity with digital sophistication, they have been able to drastically reduce the size, weight, and cost of traditional cameras. This has paved the way for a whole new era of intelligent imaging applications,” Naheta said.

PE-backed Aviation Technical Services Acquires Ranger Air

Aviation Technical Services (ATS), a technical services provider backed by New York-based private equity firm JLL Partners, has acquired Ranger Air, a supplier of aircraft airframe and engine accessories to international customers.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The deal launches ATS into the parts trading business and provides Ranger Air with access to ATS’s comprehensive repair capabilities to enable a quick return-to-service.

Headquartered in Everett, Washington, ATS provides a broad and growing portfolio of technical services in MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul), Engineering, Component Repair and Parts Development world-wide.

It supports both narrow body and wide body aircraft operators in the commercial and military aviation markets.

The ATS group of companies offers Component Services, Airframe Maintenance, Engineering Support, and Alternate Solutions in ten locations across the United States. Ranger Air is the fourth acquisition for ATS in the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the past five years.

Headquartered in Everett, Washington, ATS has over 1.2 million square feet of aviation maintenance facilities with additional operations in Moses Lake, Washington; Kansas City, Missouri; and Fort Worth, Texas.

This broad North American footprint supports our customers with advanced MRO capabilities across the full spectrum of aftermarket products and services in operationally convenient locations. With our two separate hangar facilities in Everett and Moses Lake, ATS is the largest MRO on the U.S. west coast.

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Ranger Air, on the other hand, is a premier supplier of aircraft airframe and engine accessories and components and provider of repair management services for a growing list of international customers.

Since 2002, Ranger Air has introduced innovative inventory management programs and has stocked and traded parts for virtually every commercial airframe and engine platform in the world.

Singapore: Keppel Offshore & Marine Secures $51m Contract

Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd (Keppel O&M), a wholly-owned company of Keppel Corporation Ltd, has secured two contracts with a combined value of about S$70 million ($51 million) in Brazil and Singapore.

In disclosure to the Singapore Exchange, Keppel O&M said the two contracts were secured through its wholly-owned subsidiaries.

In Brazil, Keppel FELS Brasil has been engaged by its long-standing customer, MODEC Offshore Production Systems (Singapore), part of the MODEC Inc group, to undertake the topside module fabrication and integration of the FPSO Carioca MV30, a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel.

This is the sixth FPSO collaboration between Keppel FELS Brasil and MODEC.

In Singapore, Keppel Shipyard has been entrusted with the conversion of a LNG Carrier to a floating storage and re-gasification unit (FSRU) by a leading globa operator of oil and gas production vessels.

“Keppel O&M has a strong track record in production, storage, gasification or liquefaction vessels, having successfully delivered more than 130 of such units over the years,” said Chris Ong, CEO of Keppel O&M.

BrasFELS shipyard, Keppel FELS Brasil’s facility in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will commence the fabrication of the modules for the FPSO in Q4 2018.

When completed, the FPSO Carioca MV30 will have the capacity to process 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day and 212 million cubic meters of gas per day. The unit’s storage capacity is 1.4 million barrels of crude oil.

The FPSO will be deploye4d at the Sepia field, which is located in the pre-salt region in the Santos Basin, some 250 kilometers off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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Keppel Shipyard has previously delivered three FSRUs, including the world’s first FSRU conversion. With the increase in demand for LNG in power generation, FSRUs are a fast, flexible, cost-effective, safe and environmentally-friendly storage and regasification solution that is well suited for deployment in remote areas with smaller energy requirements.

The world’s first converted FLNG vessel, Hilli Episeyo, has achieved final acceptance and commenced commercial operations for Perenco in Cameroon. This was accomplished within four years of the contract award to Keppel Shipyard.

Cushman & Wakefield Completes Acquisition of Australia’s Inc RE

Global real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield has finalized its acquisition of Inc RE, an Australian capital markets firm specializing in commercial sales, acquisitions, and investment advisory.

With the acquisition, Inc RE will join Cushman & Wakefield’s Capital Markets Australian platform and be part of the company’s global Capital Markets network.

In a statement, Cushman & Wakefield said the acquisition bolsters its capital markets platform in the region and globally.

With the combination of our global Capital Markets professionals and the recent acquisition of Inc RE, Cushman & Wakefield is placed to deliver superior results for clients in key markets across the globe,” said Matthew Bouw, Chief Executive Officer, Asia Pacific at Cushman & Wakefield.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Australian Capital Markets practice will be led by Josh Cullen, Inc RE principal.

The team will comprise 14 brokers focused on institutional sales, international investments, acquisitions and investment advisory. Cullen will be supported by Rick Butler and leading brokers Steve Kearney and Mark Hansen.

“The acquisition complements our local Capital Markets platform and creates momentum for us in the Capital Markets landscape nationally. It provides us with opportunities to accelerate the growth of the company’s broader commercial real estate business, particularly in Asset Services and Agency Leasing,” James Patterson, Chief Executive, Australia and New Zealand said.

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In addition to Josh Cullen, Rick Butler, Steve Kearney and Mark Hansen, Claire Zouroudis, Charles Long and Lisa Lee also will join the Cushman & Wakefield Capital Markets practice based in Sydney. Inc RE’s total transactions completed in the span of 18 months total $2.25 billion.

Cushman & Wakefield is among the largest real estate services firms with 48,000 employees in approximately 400 offices and 70 countries. In 2017, the firm had revenue of $6.9 billion across core services of property, facilities and project management, leasing, capital markets, valuation and other services.

Israel: AI Vision Firm AnyVision Raises $28m in Bosch-led Series A

Israel-based AnyVision, a developer of artificial intelligence and computer vision technology, announced that it has raised $28 million in Series A financing led by German multinational technology group Bosch.

In a statement, AnyVision said the latest funding round also saw the backing of two US private equity groups, which the company did not identify.

“The new capital will allow the company to meet global demand and enhance product innovation, research, and development,” AnyVision said in a press statement.

Founded in 2015, AnyVision has created a software technology that the company said learns on the feed, is customizable, and runs on multiple platforms, including existing CCTV infrastructure.

“We built AnyVision to be a core technology that solves fundamental problems in the computer vision industry and that can operate on any sensor, any time,” said Eylon Etshtein, AnyVision’s CEO and Co-Founder.

The team behind the company has over 20 years of experience in artificial intelligence and computer vision and has developed proprietary AI solutions for the HLS/Police, airports, sports/entertainment, smart cities, critical infrastructure, banks, transportation and retail verticals.

Its solutions are oriented around real-world applications relating to faces, bodies, and objects. Through seamless integration and plug and play technology, AnyVision enables any camera to smarter by indexing and analyzing everything the sensor sees.

“Our customers around the world are increasingly asking for ways of integrating person and object recognition software into our cameras; collaboration with AnyVision will allow us to fulfill this customer wish even better and offer an enhanced package of solutions,” Bernhard Schuster, SVP at Bosch Building Technologies, said.

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AnyVision has shown significant growth in the three years since it launched in 2015. Today, the company has more than 130 employees globally and recently launched its first North American office in New York City.

Later this year, AnyVision will launch three new offices globally in Los Angeles, London and Singapore. AnyVision’s global customers and world class business partners include Microsoft, Google, Johnson Controls, Telefonica and Genetec.

Paktor’s Parent M17 Entertainment Withdraws US IPO

M17 Entertainment, the parent company of Singapore-based dating and networking app Paktor, has officially withdrawn it initial public offering in the New York Stock Exchange after delaying its debut on June 10.

In a statement, M17 Entertainment said it has notified the New York Stock Exchange of its determination to withdraw the American depositary shares representing its ordinary shares from listing.

The decision was inline with previous announcements relating to the postponement of its planned IPO, the company said.

It was in May when M17 Entertainment files for an IPO in the New York Stock Exchange, seeking to raise a total of $115 million.

M17 operates the largest live streaming platform for developed Asia, including the markets of Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

According to its filing, the total number of registered users on its dating applications grew to 14.6 million as of March 31, 2018 from 13.9 million and 11.0 million as of December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Paktor’s last funding round was in November 2016, when it raised $32.5 million from K2 Global and existing investor PT Media Nusantara Citra Tbk.(MNC Media Group), with further participation from new and existing investors. That had brought the total amount the company had raised to $57.5 million.

In March 2017, under a share swap agreement, all of the shareholders of Paktor exchanged their shares for equivalent classes of M17 shares, and M17 became the holding company of Paktor.

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In October 2016 and January 2017, Paktor acquired 36.8 per cent and 9.44 per cent of the equity interests of Machipopo, respectively, and in March 2017, under the same share swap agreement through which M17 acquired Paktor, the company also acquired all of the remaining interests of Machipopo by issuing equivalent classes of our shares to the remaining shareholders of Machipopo.

The company’s interactive entertainment platform includes 17 Media, the largest live streaming platform by revenue in Developed Asia with a market share of 19.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2018, according to Frost & Sullivan, and 33.3 million registered users.

Goldman Sachs Backs $55m Series C in Japanese Fintech Startup Paidy

Japanese financial technology (fintech) startup Paidy Inc has announced raising $55 million in a Series C funding round backed by Goldman Sachs. The latest round raised the startup’s total capital to $80 million.

In a statement, Paidy said the Series C was led by Japanese firm ITOCHU Corporation. It will use the fresh capital to launch large merchants, expand into the offline market, and offer additional financial services.

The fintech firm expects to grow its customer base to 11,000,000 accounts by 2020.

Paidy started Japan’s first instant post-pay credit service for ecommerce consumers in October 2014. It requires no pre-registration or credit card to use; Paidy consumers purchase products online using only a mobile phone number and email address (verification is established through a four-digit code via SMS or voice pin-code) and settle a single monthly bill for all their purchases, either at a convenience store, by bank transfer or auto debit.

The startup also also supports multi-pay installments and subscriptions. There are currently over 1,400,000 Paidy accounts in use (June 2018).

“We are extremely honored that Paidy’s business concept was highly valued by one of Japan’s most prestigious business conglomerates, ITOCHU. Through this tie-up, we expect to launch new merchants in order to deliver Paidy’s frictionless and intuitive financial solution to a much broader audience,” said Russell Cummer, Founder and Executive Chairman of Paidy.

Cummer added that Paidy now aims to promote its vision of removing barriers and creating unique consumer experiences to as many people as possible.

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Paidy has proved a powerful means of persuading first time buyers to transact online. Its proprietary models and machine learning mean that transactions are underwritten in seconds, with guaranteed payment to merchants.

Paidy increases merchant revenues by reducing incomplete transactions, increasing conversion rates, boosting average order values, and facilitating easy repeat buying.