Minato Forms a Fund to Invest in an Overseas VC Fund

21.11.12

Please be informed that Minato Management Co., Ltd. has formed a fund and invested in a fund managed by Alpha JWC Ventures (Co-Founders & Managing Partners: Chandra Tjan and Jefrey Joe; hereinafter referred to as the “Alpha JWC”).

Alpha JWC is an Indonesia-based venture capital fund manager that has operated primarily in the Southeast Asian region. We invested jointly with overseas investors in the second fund that Alpha JWC started managing in 2018 (total amount: approximately 143 million U.S. dollars).

The second fund has performed successfully, having invested in 30 start-ups and already achieved two exits, with two unicorns (startups valued at more than 1 billion U.S. dollars). The fund Total-Value-to-Paid In (TVPI) has reached 3.45x and its Internal Rate of Return IRR is around 87%.

Alpha JWC announced the launch of its third fund in November of this year. As we have deepened our relationship with Alpha JWC through its second fund and highly rate its past management performance and accountability to investors, we made our latest decision to invest in the third fund, following its second one. The third fund closed at 433 million U.S. dollars in November, marking the largest early stage fund in Southeast Asia. Investors in this Fund III include World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners.

To date, this fund has been invested in 7 companies in the sector of financial technology, business-to-business (B2B) SaaS, and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) solutions in Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

To proceed with this latest decision, we have established a subsidiary to form a fund, which has concluded a partnership agreement with the Alpha JWC fund to make investments as a Limited Partner.

Alpha JWC invests in the Southeast Asian region, primarily in Indonesia. The firm currently manages around 630 million U.S. dollars and 50 active portfolio companies across three funds. In addition, the firm has generated nine exits so far, including the acquisition of business media DealStreetAsia to Nikkei, regional co-working space network Spacemob to WeWork, and Vietnamese enterprise SaaS Base.vn to the country’s largest technology firm FPT Corporation.

The economic environment in countries in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, is vibrant with high market growth potential. It is a great honor for us to introduce such a blue chip investment fund to Japanese investors and the investment market in Japan. We also believe this is exactly where we should have a role.

We will continue to assess the value of diverse investment projects and form funds in collaboration with our business partners.