The fund will primarily look to invest in medtech, fintech, insurtech, and general deeptech sectors

Cocoon Capital, the early-stage venture firm in Southeast Asia, has announced the launch of its second seed fund worth US$22 million (S$30 million).

The fund plans to back the enterprise tech market with medtech, fintech, insurtech, and general “deep” tech sectors as primary targets.

The second fund is supported by investors including Michelle Yong (Director of Singapore’s Aurum Investments), Jani Rautiainen (Co-founder of PropertyGuru), Parag Khanna (The author of The Future is Asian), Pierre Lorinet (Director at Trafigura Group), Matthew Chapman (Founder of ChapmanCG), Stein Jakob Øie (Former President at Lazada), hedge fund manager Steve Diggle’s Vulpes Innovative Technologies Investment Company, Martin Hauge (Partner in Creandum – streaming giant Spotify’s first financial investor), Martin Roll (Global strategy consultant), and Oliver Tonby (Chairman of McKinsey’s offices in Asia excluding Greater China).

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“Over the last three years, we at Cocoon Capital have seen a radical improvement in deal quality, in particular from the Southeast Asia countries outside Singapore,” said Michael Blakey, Managing Partner at Cocoon Capital.

“There is a continuing gap in the region when it comes to hands-on mentoring, in particular at the early stages of a company’s formation, and Cocoon Capital has operation that seeks to provide a support package to our founders, one that is in the same league as networks in Silicon Valley, London, or Shanghai,” added Will Klippgen, Managing Partner at Cocoon Capital.

In addition, the VC firm has also announced its initiative of hosting public mentoring hours regularly in partnership with local accelerators and co-working spaces in Singapore, Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, Manila, Bangkok, Jakarta, and Yangon in a bid to help grow the local entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Cocoon Capital was founded by Michael Blakey and Will Klippgen, who both are early-stage investors in Asia. Both Blakey and Klippgen are also behind portfolios like PropertyGuru, Tickled Media, and iXiGO.com in their early-stage fundraisings.

Its investees include cleantech company SensorFlow, stroke-predicting software medtech company See-Mode, ticketing company Hapz, Filipino e-merchant ​Poundit, and Vietnam-based automated influencer matching platform Hiip.

Logistics platform Kargo Myanmar was the first to be backed by Cocoon Capital with its second fund.

A survey conducted by Econsultancy.com Ltd2 resulted in 68 per cent of Southeast Asia-based respondents said they have an omnichannel strategy that incorporates B2B ecommerce. However, only 7 per cent of venture capital has been channeled to B2B startups in the region.

Photo by Jakub Gorajek on Unsplash

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