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Rebright Partners forms $20M fund, focused on investing in mobile startups in India

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See the original story in Japanese. Rebright Partners, a startup fund backed by leading Japanese internet companies and focused on investing in startups in Southeast Asia, announced today that it has formed a new fund called Rebright Partners II Investment Partnership, looking to enhance investments in consumer-focused mobile-first or mobile-only startups in India. The fund is valued 2.4 billion yen or $20 million, following the “zeroth” fund Batavia Incubator launched in 2011 in partnership with Indonesian financial conglomerate Corfina as well as the first fund launched in 2011. In population, India is expected to exceed China and become the world’s most populous country within 15 years. Regarding the number of smartphone users, India will overtake the U.S. to rank in as the second largest market globally in 2016 (according to eMarketer, December 2014). E-commerce providers in India, such as Flipkart, Amazon India, and Snapdeal, are seeing a good growth, while leading U.S.-based  investment firms like Google Capital and Tiger recently established their local offices in India at the beginning of this year. Among Japanese leading companies, Softbank announced last year that they would strengthen massive investment efforts in India, investing in Snapdeal, taxi-hailing app Ola, and Locon Solutions, the company behind India’s leading property search portal Housing.com. Upon forming the new fund, Rebright Partners appointed Brij Bhasin, who previously worked…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Rebright Partners, a startup fund backed by leading Japanese internet companies and focused on investing in startups in Southeast Asia, announced today that it has formed a new fund called Rebright Partners II Investment Partnership, looking to enhance investments in consumer-focused mobile-first or mobile-only startups in India. The fund is valued 2.4 billion yen or $20 million, following the “zeroth” fund Batavia Incubator launched in 2011 in partnership with Indonesian financial conglomerate Corfina as well as the first fund launched in 2011.

In population, India is expected to exceed China and become the world’s most populous country within 15 years. Regarding the number of smartphone users, India will overtake the U.S. to rank in as the second largest market globally in 2016 (according to eMarketer, December 2014). E-commerce providers in India, such as Flipkart, Amazon India, and Snapdeal, are seeing a good growth, while leading U.S.-based  investment firms like Google Capital and Tiger recently established their local offices in India at the beginning of this year.

Among Japanese leading companies, Softbank announced last year that they would strengthen massive investment efforts in India, investing in Snapdeal, taxi-hailing app Ola, and Locon Solutions, the company behind India’s leading property search portal Housing.com.

Upon forming the new fund, Rebright Partners appointed Brij Bhasin, who previously worked at Bangalore-based accelerator GSF, as an investment manager in India while inviting former Deloitte Tohmatsu employee Takumi Kawai as an investment manager for the Southeast Asian market.

In India, Rebright Partners has invested in four local startups including Tookitaki (big data analysis) and Newsinsorts (curated news app) thus far, while also considering to invest in several e-commerce app startups.

According to Rebright Partners’ Takeshi Ebihara, Japanese mobile apps like Smartnews or Mercari are doing well not only in Japan but also globally, so Rebright Partners wants to bring these experiences from the Japanese mobile industry to startup ecosystems in India as well as Southeast Asia to help them grow further and faster.

Rebright Partners' Takeshi Ebihara
Rebright Partners’ Takeshi Ebihara

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s Rebright Partners establishes a new fund focused on startups in Southeast Asia

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Japanese seed investor Rebright Partners, led by veteran entrepreneur Takeshi Ebihara, recently formed a new investment fund focusing on the internet and mobile business in Southeast Asia. We caught up with Ebihara in a recent interview, and he explained what he’s aspiring to do with this new fund. Can you give us some general information about this new fund? The fund is focused on investing in startups in Southeast Asian regions. From our perspective, [we’re looking at] six countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore. The fund’s limited partners are mainly Japanese individual investors or entrepreneurs with a proven track record, such as the founders of TSE-listed companies or those who have exited their companies. You are investing in Indonesian startups under Batavia Incubator, a joint venture with Indonesia’s Corfina Group. Is the new fund any different from your regular investments? Batavia Incubator aims to invest in immature but high potential startups in Indonesia, and what we’ve been doing under Batavia is something like incubative activities rather than investments. The new fund focuses on the entire Asian region, and invests in relatively promising startups run by experienced entrepreneurs. Have you yet invested in any startups with the new…

rebright_partners_logoJapanese seed investor Rebright Partners, led by veteran entrepreneur Takeshi Ebihara, recently formed a new investment fund focusing on the internet and mobile business in Southeast Asia.

We caught up with Ebihara in a recent interview, and he explained what he’s aspiring to do with this new fund.

Can you give us some general information about this new fund?

The fund is focused on investing in startups in Southeast Asian regions. From our perspective, [we’re looking at] six countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore. The fund’s limited partners are mainly Japanese individual investors or entrepreneurs with a proven track record, such as the founders of TSE-listed companies or those who have exited their companies.

You are investing in Indonesian startups under Batavia Incubator, a joint venture with Indonesia’s Corfina Group. Is the new fund any different from your regular investments?

ebihara_vertical
Rebright Partners’
Takeshi Ebihara

Batavia Incubator aims to invest in immature but high potential startups in Indonesia, and what we’ve been doing under Batavia is something like incubative activities rather than investments. The new fund focuses on the entire Asian region, and invests in relatively promising startups run by experienced entrepreneurs.

Have you yet invested in any startups with the new fund?

Yes, we actually set up the fund about a couple of weeks ago, but we have already invested in two startups. One is Adskom, an ad tech startup in Indonesia founded by two experienced entrepreneurs. They will provide a supply-side platform (SSP) solution for managing real-time bidding on online ad networks. The other is a Singaporean startup, but we can’t disclose their name for now because they would like to announce it when their new service is live.

What’s unique about this new fund?

We can summarize the fund’s uniqueness in four points.

  1. Focusing on multiple markets in Southeast Asian regions. That’s why our investees are startups which will not be satisfied with doing business in just their home markets, but expects business expansion across the entire regions.
  2. We are expecting to invest in relatively promising startups, founded by well-experienced serial entrepreneurs who have many connections with local markets.
  3. We’re focused on markets where user acquisition cost is quite low. And that’s Southeast Asia for now. The user acquisition cost in the region is about one-tenth of that of the US or Japan. That’s why some US funds and angel investors are also interested in joining the fund.
  4. We focus on investing in internet services for consumers because this space will benefit from local people’s [growing] appetite for consuming digital content and merchandise.

Especially over the past few months, several Japanese VC firms have rapidly established new funds with the intention to investments in tech startups in the Southeast Asian market. We are hoping these efforts help the startup communities in Japan and Southeast Asia become closer than ever in their collaboration.