Indonesia and Singapore currently dominate venture capital (VC) fundraising in Southeast Asia despite a slower pace of capital raising in the first quarter this year, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.
According to the latest report by DealStreetAsia, Indonesia raised US$161 million (RM699.4 million) in the first three months of 2020, while Singapore ranked first in the region with US$865 million over the same period.
No closures were recorded by VC funds in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand or Vietnam, the report said.
In a statement on Tuesday, head of DealStreetAsia Asean market research division Andi Haswidi said that the first-quarter fundraising performance did not reflect the true impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Most of the capital committed by investors to VC funds in the first quarter was actually solicited before the region began to tighten social-distancing measures in April, he said.
VC funds in the region accumulated US$1.3 billion in the first three months of this year, ending a year-long streak of quarter-on-quarter growth.
Andi went on to say that the outlook for VC raising in the region is expected to deteriorate in the coming months as the full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic starts to affect the fundraising process.
Source : Bernama | The Edge Market
