Headline Asia closes $145M fund to fuel investments in Asia-Pacific

Summary

With the current economic uncertainties and geopolitical challenges, securing funding for startups in Asia has recently become more difficult. Venture capital firms have also been impacted by the downturn, leading to a decrease in the number of funds being closed. The VC market is “going through [one of its] cyclical winters marked by high interest rates, tightened liquidity, and cautious LP sentiment,” Akio Tanaka, a co-founder of and partner at Headline Asia, a Tokyo- and Taipei-based VC firm, told TechCrunch in an interview. Yet funds are still closing. Headline Asia said Tuesday it had completed one of its largest funds to date, Headline Asia Fund V, at $145 million to invest in tech startups across Asia-Pacific. (Headline previously said that it was targeting $180 million for the fund.) Headline’s latest fund is earmarked for startup founders building companies targeting digital transformation and cross-border operations in Japan, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, with selective investment in South Korea. Headline invests in early-stage — seed to Series A — with check sizes ranging from $1 million to $5 million in e-commerce, logistics, fintech, IP, and AI. Backers of Headline Asia’s fifth fund include a mix of public and private entities, including Japan Investment Corporation (JIC), the National Development Fund of Taiwan (NDF), Korea Venture Investment Corporation (KVIC), and SME Support Japan. Headline’s new fund has already invested in 17 companies, including Newmo, a Japanese taxi and ride-sharing startup; Jenfi, a Singapore-based company providing revenue-based financing for digital businesses and startups in Southeast Asia; and Pi-xcels, a Tokyo- and Singapore-based startup that delivers NFC-enabled tech for merchants to send receipts to their customers. Certain investors in Southeast Asia prefer to make safe investments that generate profits instead of investing in high-growth, high-risk tech startups in a challenging funding climate, according to Tanaka. He...