It’s a tough market for venture capital, but Square Peg Capital is moving forward with a focus on Australia (where it is based), Southeast Asia and Israel. The firm announced today that it has closed its fifth fund totaling $550 million. Therefore, the total amount raised in all funds is about $1.6 billion.
Square Peg has invested in over 60 companies and returned over $580 million to its investors through 11 exits with an IRR of 42%. It supports Australian superannuation funds such as Hostplus and AustralianSuper, while other long-term programs include new and returning investors from family offices, institutions and foundations.
A portion of Square Peg’s new capital will be used for its main venture capital fund, which invests in Series B startups. It will also invest in the next stages of development of its best-performing portfolio companies through its Opportunity Fund.
Square Peg Capital partners Tushar Roy and Piruse Sanbunku
Square Peg is growing in Southeast Asia, home to partners Tushar Roy and Piruse Sabunku. Roy told TechCrunch in April that Southeast Asia is the company’s fastest-growing geographic footprint. Half of the latest $275 million fund, Fund 3, was invested in Southeast Asia. The firm is focused on five key areas in the region: consumer internet, fintech, edtech and the future of work, healthtech and SaaS.
Some of Square Peg’s investments so far from Southeast Asia include LottieFiles, Doctor anywhere and FinAccel. This is a new fund that I also invested in recruitment automation platform Kula and Supabase is an open source alternative to Firebase.
Portfolio companies from other regions include Canva, Airwallex and ROKT in Australia, and Fiverr and AIDoc from Israel.
In a statement, Sabunku said: “We already know the potential of Southeast Asia when looking at the underlying macro numbers, but the last few years have proven that you can build a global business from this region or create new business models that can disrupt how people access to various services, be it credit, education or healthcare.’
