Southeast Asian venture capital firm Openspace Ventures is seeking to raise $300 million for its fourth early-stage fund and $350 million for its second growth vehicle, OSV+.
The development was first reported by AVCJ. According to the report, Openspace’s fundraising process commenced over the past week, with certain investors granted early access to the fund’s data room.
Openspace is one of Southeast Asia’s most prominent venture capital funds. It boasts an array of well-known portfolio companies such as Indonesian ride-hailing superapp Gojek, healthtech firm Biofourmis, fintech startup Finaccel, and Filipino online entertainment app Kumu.
The Singapore-based VC firm oversees three early-stage funds — Openspace Ventures I ($90 million), Openspace Ventures II ($135 million), and Openspace Ventures III ($200 million), which closed in March 2021. It also manages a $30-million crypto fund called Ocular. Openspace’s first growth-stage opportunities fund, OSV+, closed at $200 million in April 2022.
Some of Openspace’s past limited partners (LPs) include names such as the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), Stepstone Group, Temasek Holdings, European institutions DEG and Norfund, US-based 57 stars, and Japan-headquartered bank Mizuho.
Openspace Ventures commences its fundraising process at a challenging time for venture capitalists globally.
Rising interest rates globally, coupled with major public market corrections, have dimmed the attractiveness of venture capital compared with other asset classes such as bonds and fixed income which are viewed as less risky.
The “denominator effect” from these market changes has also meant that global LPs are now overly weighted on private equity and are less likely to increase their allocations into the sector.
OSV+ has previously applied a staple function to drive its fundraising process, offering existing LPs various incentives like slight fee discounts to commit to the growth-stage vehicle. Such approaches are not uncommon among fundraisers and are likely to be re-used in this current environment to draw LPs in.
Openspace Ventures was founded in 2014 by Hian Goh and Shane Chesson. It focuses on early to growth investments in Southeast Asian technology companies across fintech, healthtech, edtech, consumer applications, and cloud-based solutions segments.
The VC firm was previously a unit of private equity firm Northstar Group and was rebranded from NSI Ventures to Openspace in April 2018.