Vickers Venture Partners is raising $250 million for its new global fund

Despite fears of a slowdown that has already caused some sobering devaluations in markets like India and China, it seems that venture capital will continue to flow for a little while yet.

Singapore-headquartered investment firm Vickers Venture Partners plans to pour some water into that stream with its newly announced fund with a target size of US$250 million. Vickers has already raised US$63.5 million from existing investors.

Capped at US$400 million, it could become one of the largest funds by a Singapore VC so far, close to the US$600 million fund that Temasek poured into subsidiary Vertex Ventures last October. It’s the fifth fund raised by the company.

It hopes to achieve its target fundraise by this time next year at the latest, according to co-founder and chairman Dr. Finian Tan.

Finian has been an investor for almost 20 years, both as part of investment firms and working for the Singapore government. Notably, he invested in Baidu in 2000 at a valuation of US$30 million, as head of Asia for international venture capital firm DFJ ePlanet.

Pedigree

Vickers was established in 2005 by Finian and co-founders Khalil Binebine, Jeff Chi, Damian Tan, and Linda Li. It’s present in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and San Diego and has worked with companies in markets like Singapore, China, India, and the US.

Through its first four funds, the firm has invested a total of US$149 million in companies like Chinese electric motor company Jing-Jin Electric, Singaporean online payments and gamification service Matchmove, and cross-border trading startup M-Daq, also from Singapore. It has over 36 companies in its portfolio.

Vickers invests mainly in TMT (Technology, Media, Telecommunications), financial services, consumer tech, and life sciences, including healthcare and medicine. It prefers to get in at a company’s early stage, from seed up to series A and B. Then it does follow-on investments in later stages, with companies it has helped grow.

This will apply to this latest fund as well, for which Vickers is already exploring potential deals. It plans to put half the fund into existing portfolio companies, while the rest of it will be put toward new investments. “The toughest part of our job is trying to decide what not to invest in – there’s just too many good deals around,” Finian says.

The firm’s investments usually range from US$1 million to US$12 million per company, according to Finian, with more money flowing in with subsequent rounds. Vickers invests at most 20 percent of a given fund into one deal, but it has to be a truly exceptional investee for that to happen. The equity stake it takes in its portfolio companies varies per case.

Finian says the stake Vickers owns in a company doesn’t determine how closely the investor works with it, however. “Some companies don’t need us at all, in others we go all the way,” he says. He has sat on the board of portfolio companies like Singapore real estate investment firm Cambridge Industrial Trust.

Measure of success

Vickers publishes the returns on its funds on its website. Altogether, its four funds saw a net multiple of 3.36 times as of Q1 2016. About a third of its investments is in Singapore and India, another large part aims at China, and the remaining 30 percent of its investments targets life sciences companies from around the world, like US-based regenerative medicine company Samumed.

To invest, the firm looks at three main factors: the space the company operates in, its competitive edge, and its team. Of those, the team is the most vital – even if the startup isn’t completely up to snuff on the other two, the investor will consider it. “Since that’s the most important of all, we really spend a lot of time getting to know the entrepreneur, both before we invest and after,” Finian says. “Post-investment relationship is very important.”

When it comes to Singapore, Finian acknowledges the gap between early-stage and late-stage investments. “I think there is a bit of a gap in the 1m to 10m range, which is what we are trying to fill,” he explains. At the same time, Vickers hopes to attract more investors and entrepreneurs from elsewhere into the country, if Singapore is to be a proper startup hub in the style of Silicon Valley.

“How many people that start companies [in Silicon Valley] were actually born there?” he muses. “Less than 5 percent. The rest come from all around the US, all around the world.” Singapore, he argues, must attract more international founders and investors in order to up its game.

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This article by Michael Tegos originally appeared on Tech in Asia, a Burn Media publishing partner.

Feature image: 401(K) 2012 via Flickr.