Singapore-based early-stage venture fund Integra Partners (Integra), has on Thursday announced the final close of its second fund Integra Partners Fund II LP (Integra Partners Fund II) at $90 million.
This brings the total committed capital managed by the firm to over $140 million, Integra said in a statement.
According to the statement, Integra Partners Fund II is anchored by global institutional investors including Germany’s development finance institution DEG, the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries Norfund, European alternative asset management group Tikehau Capital, and includes participation from strategic corporates and family offices globally.
“In the past few years of low interest rates, we’ve seen the rise of overvaluations amid the venture boom. In the next five years, that will not be the case,
“Integra has been well-positioned with our disciplined fund deployment strategy, always considering scalability and sustainability of all businesses we invest in,” said Jinesh Patel, Managing Partner at Integra.
Integra Partners is a Singapore-based venture fund manager focusing on early-stage investments from pre Series A to Series B.
Building on its fintech track record, Integra invests in companies across different sectors that embrace financial services as part of their business value proposition to offer more profitable and more inclusive products and services.
This effectively allows the team to target a broad opportunity set with a unique angle.
“We included Digital Health in the mandate for Fund II as we see it as a test case to prove our thesis that fintech is becoming a horizontal layer across all sectors and is embedded in all industries,” said Chris Kaptein, Managing Partner at Integra.
“For example, in emerging markets across Southeast Asia, access to healthcare is often a financial problem as medical inflation becomes a pressing concern,
“Similarly, we see applications of fintech in almost every sector – e-commerce, AI, climate, logistics, education and beyond,” he said.
According to him, Integra’s network spans the entire ecosystem including financial institutions like banks, insurers and large corporations.
“This brings strategic value-add to our founders as they form commercial partnerships,
“Especially in an environment where global investors are concerned about feasibility of exits and performance in Southeast Asia markets, having such an ecosystem increases our exit visibility as a fund manager since these institutions may one day become potential acquirers as well,” he added.
Integra Partners Fund II is aimed at empowering tech entrepreneurs to drive access and affordability to responsible financial services and healthcare across Southeast and South Asia.
The fund targets fintech, insurtech and digital health opportunities that leverage synergies across sectors to drive financial and healthcare inclusion.
“This is the first time we are investing in a Southeast Asia venture capital manager and we have identified Integra Partners given its strong track record and unique positioning in the region,
“We look forward to a long term partnership with Integra Partners,” said Jean-Baptiste Feat, Co-Head of Asia At Tikehau Capital.
Integra’s first fund, Integra Partners Fund I, is a 2017 vintage fund that has consistently tracked top quartile returns according to its relevant Cambridge Associates performance benchmarks, and is well above the top 5 percent amongst peers in terms of distributions to paid-in capital (DPI).
“As anchor-investor in Integra’s initial closing and the first international development finance institution to invest in the fund, DEG is pleased that our investment helped to mobilize additional capital for the successful final closing,
“The fund’s strategy to invest in companies that use digital technology to drive transformation and inclusion in the financial services is highly complementary to our investment focus in the FinTech-space and we are looking forward to the next steps of the mutual journey with Integra,” said Dr. Felix Schneider, DEG Head FinTech Investments.
Across Integra’s two funds, the firm has invested in 27 companies, comprising mostly business to business (B2B) and business to business to consumer (B2B2C) businesses, where Integra frequently delivered the first lead institutional check.
Integra’s portfolio companies include regional e-commerce aggregator, graas (Southeast Asia regional and India), earned wage access providers wagely (Indonesia and Bangladesh) and GIMO (Vietnam), open finance provider Brankas (Southeast Asia regional), institutional FX platform, Spark Systems (Asia regional), cybersecurity reinsurer, Envelop Risk (Global), and cybersecurity platform ReaQta (Global), which fully exited to IBM in 2021.
Now a team of 17, Integra has imminent plans of further regional expansion.
The firm currently has a footprint in Philippines, India, and Pakistan.
Integra intends to continue expanding regionally, building out its venture partner network and in-country teams.