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East Ventures Targets New $88 Million Post-Pandemic Startup Fund

East Ventures Targets New $88 Million Post-Pandemic Startup Fund

East Ventures, Southeast Asia’s most active early-stage tech investment firm, is targeting a new $88 million seed fund to back promising startups emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.

The venture-capital outfit has raised $57 million at first close from investors including Adams Street and Pavilion Capital, a unit of Temasek Holdings Pte, according to East Ventures Managing Partner Willson Cuaca.

The Indonesia-focused VC firm, which was the first backer of Tokopedia and Traveloka, two of Southeast Asia’s most valuable startups, is looking to replicate its prior success in a fundamentally new business environment. Many firms saw revenue evaporate after governments imposed tough restrictions on social activities to curb the spread of the virus, forcing them to cut salaries and jobs or pivot their businesses to deal with a cash crunch.

“It is easier now to filter good entrepreneurs as we saw how many entrepreneurs handled this Covid-19 crisis,” Cuaca said in an interview. “Crisis brings clarity.”

Founded in Singapore in 2009, East Ventures was an early investor in Indonesian startups and has backed more than 170 companies in Southeast Asia in the past 11 years. This is the firm’s eighth fund.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.