Iterative, a Singapore-based early-stage venture capital firm that also runs a YC-style accelerator, said Wednesday it has closed its second fund at $55 million to invest in startups across Southeast Asia.

Fund II was led by Cendana, K5 Global, Village Global, Goodwater Capital with participation from a large network of Silicon Valley founders and execs including Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox), Achmad Zaky (Bukalapak), Andrew Chen (General partner a16z, Uber), Qasar Younis (Former Chief Operating Officer, YC, Applied Intuition), David Shim (Foursquare), Kum Hong Siew (Head of Airbnb Asia), and many more, Iteractive said in a statement.

With the launch of Fund II, Iterative looks to invest over 100 companies across Southeast Asia at more stages, ranging from pre-seed to Series A. It has also expanded its investment range and now writes checks up to $500,000 depending on the stage of the startup.

So far, the venture capital firm has accelerated over 65 companies across five cohorts. Iterative’s sixth cohort (W23) will kick off in February 2023 and is currently accepting applications.

Since Iterative made its first investment in June 2020, its companies have gone on to raise $163 million in follow-on funding from investors like Insight Partners, Tiger Global, Monk’s Hill, Wavemaker, Hustle Fund, and more.

Currently, Iterative’s total portfolio is worth $1.2 billionl.

Some of Iterative companies that have announced their funding rounds include: fintech startup Spenmo (W21) that closed an $85 million Series B round led by Tiger Global in January; travel startup GoZayaan (W21) which has closed $8 million in capital and acquired it’s counterpart in Pakistan; and proptech startup Propseller (S20) that raised $12 million Series A in August. Sendhelper (S20), a home services startup was
acquired by PropertyGuru in October.

“We’re very grateful to our founders for letting us be a small part of their journey, and equally thankful to our existing and new limited partners who continue to believe in the power of entrepreneurship to positively impact the region,” said Brian Ma, Co-Founder and General Partner at Iterative.

Iterative’s mission is to increase the GDP of Southeast Asia through entrepreneurship. It does so by making entrepreneurship more accessible to more people and giving founders the tools and support to be successful.

“Although our mission remains the same, this fund gives Iterative more resources to provide more help to more founders,” said Hsu Ken Ooi, Co-Founder and General Partner at Iterative.

With Fund II, Iterative plans to have larger batches as the firm has always wanted to invest in more founders. With this fund, there will be an internal team to support it.

The firm also keen in investing in community. Although the Iterative Community is already vibrant, mainly because of the people involved and the shared experiences of being a founder, it wants to take a more active role in bringing its community together. That means starting each batch with having all founders meet in a specific city and having an annual event for all of its founders.

The firm has also made a conscious decision in the first fund to not do follow on investments. Instead to use the capital to invest in more startups. Although that was the right decision for the first fund, it is now in a position to do both.

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