Iris Capital Partners, a private credit solutions provider headquartered in Malaysia, is seeking to raise $200 million from institutional investors, the latest family wealth vehicle to open up to outside capital, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The firm is seeking cash for a new private credit and private equity fund, managing partner Rachel Lau said in an interview with Bloomberg.
“Everyone realises after a couple of years that just having families invest is not enough,” she said. “You need more permanent capital from insurance, pensions, and sovereign funds.”
Founded in 2020, Iris is seeking to launch the private markets fund early next year. Today, family capital anchors about 25 percent of the firm’s assets, while the rest comes from third-party institutions. Anchor investors of Iris include Kim Dong-won, a scion of the family behind South Korea’s Hanwha Group, and Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, according to the report.
Lau is the daughter of the late Lau Boon Ann, who built a fortune in real estate and was an early investor in Top Glove Corp Bhd, the world’s largest manufacturer of rubber gloves.
She is also Co-Founder of venture capital firm RHL Ventures, which was founded in 2016. The other partners are Raja Hamzah Abidin, son of former Malaysian politician Raja Nong Chik, and Jojo Kong, whose father David Kong founded Nirvana Asia Ltd, one of the largest funeral service providers in Asia.
RHL is a Malaysian-based multi-stage VC firm investing across Southeast Asia. Together with South Korea’s KB Investment Co Ltd, RHL also manages The Hibiscus Fund, which forms part of the Dana Penjana Nasional (DPN) Program, an economic recovery initiative by the Malaysia government. Under the program, foreign and private VC fund managers will match, on a 1:1 basis, with the government in investment allocations of up to 1.2 billion ringgit ($290 million).
Private credit is a pivot for Lau, who opined that institutional partners can be more straightforward to work with than other families.
According to the report, she plans to take majority stakes of 50 percent to 80 percent in international companies and help them with their expansion in Southeast Asia. For example, US and Chinese businesses coming to Malaysia and Indonesia. Recent deals include an investment in biotech firm Mirxes Holding Co, which listed in Hong Kong in May.
Relative to a family office, “institutional capital is easier because they’re more clear with what they want. It’s all about financial returns; there are no emotions”, Lau was quoted as saying.
Lau said founding Iris is her push to move away from the volatility of venture capital towards what she termed the clearer rules of private markets.
“Venture in Asia has been rough. For us, it makes more sense to invest in private credit and private equity, and we will slowly pare down the venture exposure,” she was quoted as saying.