Hong Kong-headquartered real estate private equity firm Gaw Capital Partners has closed its first commingled growth equity fund, Gaw Growth Equity Fund I, at over $430 million, according to a statement.
Excluding capital raised for co-investment deals, the fund closed at $332 million in total commitments and is approximately one-third committed, the firm said.
Investors in the vehicle include sovereign wealth funds, endowments and other institutional investors that have invested in Gaw Capital’s flagship Gateway Funds, as well as new limited partners.
The growth fund was launched in late 2020 and invests in proptech and real estate-related operating companies with a primary geographical focus on Asia.
“The institutional investors’ commitments to our Gaw Growth Equity Fund I reflects their readiness to allocate more of their capital towards proptech and ESG related investments, given the attractive market opportunity and rapid growth of the sector,” said Christina Gaw, managing principal and co-chair of alternative investments at Gaw Capital Partners.
“It is a great time to start a proptech fund as real estate owners globally are starting to become more engaged in the technological adoption during the pandemic,” added the firm’s other co-chair of alternative investments, Humbert Pang.
Gaw Capital Partners also said that its real estate portfolio will provide a testing ground for companies to adopt new technologies and implement more ESG initiatives for energy savings and improving operational efficiencies.
Gaw Capital Partners’s proptech investments include a Series D financing for Chinese housing transaction and service platform Beike, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in August 2020; China’s co-living space management Ziroom; online-offline medical service provider Tencent Trusted Doctors; SensorFlow in Singapore; global real estate software company Switch Automation; and Vietnam-based Propzy.
In September last year, Gaw Capital completed fundraising for its China internet data centre platform with about $1.3 billion in commitments. A month earlier, the firm had closed two investment vehicles totaling up to $900 million.
The first vehicle will focus primarily on real estate opportunities across sectors and markets in Asia, while the second will invest in education platforms in major Asian cities.
In addition to six funds in the Gateway Fund series targeting Asia Pacific, Gaw Capital Partners also manages opportunistic funds in Vietnam and the US, along with a Pan-Asia Hospitality Fund and European Hospitality Fund.
The firm managed $27 billion of assets as of Q3 2020.