Singapore-headquartered venture capital firm DSG Consumer Partners (DSGCP) is nearing the final close of its third fund at its $65-million hard cap, exceeding an initial $50-million target.
Concurrently, the firm has reached the first close of its second annex fund, DSGCP Buildout II (DB II), at $35 million, DSGCP managing director Deepak Shahdadpuri told DealStreetAsia.
The VC’s third fund, DSGCP III, has garnered backing from new limited partners (LPs) including fund of funds and family offices, with the general partner contributing $5 million. The fund has already made two investments and is seeing a robust pipeline of deals in India, Singapore and Indonesia. It is, however, expecting more action in Indonesia.
“We have one direct investment in Indonesia and two companies with exposure to Indonesia. And we like what we see. I am personally spending more time in that market. With 260 million people, Indonesia is the largest country in ASEAN. I expect Fund III to have more exposure to Indonesia,” Shahdadpuri said.
Launched earlier this year, the third fund had reached the first close at $30 million in March. The firm has so far deployed almost the entire corpus of its $50-million second fund raised in 2017. DSG’s first fund had raised $12 million.
Meanwhile, the firm’s latest annex fund will deploy the same strategy as its predecessor, DSGCP Tyeb. DBII will only invest in the Series B/C/D rounds of the best companies from DSGCP I and selectively from DSGCP II where the flagship fund has hit its investment threshold.
“We expect to have the final close of DBII in a couple of months,” Shahdadpuri added.
In an interview, Shahdadpuri further discusses the two funds in detail, and also the firm’s investment strategy in India and SE Asia going forward. Edited excerpts:
Could you elaborate on the new LPs in DSGCP III?
We have given priority in the new fund to existing investors. About 85 per cent of the fund is from existing investors and only $10 million was open to new investors. We had demand far exceeding our hard cap but insisted on raising the appropriate amount for our strategy and resisted increasing the fund size.
