free venture capital resources
Information and resources to help you navigate the capital raising process in Southeast Asia.
map of the funding terms
Got a term sheet? Compare it with typical investment terms for deals in Southeast Asia. Our map covers seed-stage, Series A, Series B and Series C+ rounds.
raising your seed round
Building a high-growth business often means bringing in seed capital to help bring your vision to life. Browse our guides to understand how to raise seed funding - from getting investor ready to understanding the terms in your term sheet.
Browse our seed funding templates:
part one: getting investor ready
> founder arrangements
> group restructuring
part two: how to structure your seed round
> what is a KISS
> what is a SAFE
> seed equity financing
> key terms and documentation
> how to find investors
need to brush up on your SAFEs and your KISSes?
see our startup glossary
raising your series a round
Ready to raise a series A round? If your business is scaling and you're starting to gain momentum with users, your startup might be ready for its next round of capital raising.
Browse our series A templates:
part one: key terms
> key economic rights: liquidation preferences, anti-dilution, share vesting
> key control rights: board composition, veto rights
part two: closing the deal
> employee share incentives (ESOPs)
> follow-on rounds
> venture debt
vc term sheet deep dive
Know what to focus on in negotiations with potential investors with our new video series on term sheets.
Join partner Lee Bagshaw as he walks you through a typical term sheet and explains common issues that arise.
We give you a copy of the term sheet marked up from a startup founders’ perspective, so that you can watch the video and follow along with the mark-up in front of you.
venture capital case studies
Fintech startups are the next big thing in the Southeast Asian tech scene. Kindrik Partners client C88 (formerly Compare88) is racing ahead of the pack after securing the backing of high-profile VC investors including Telstra Ventures.
C88 provides online financial services price comparison tools, helping consumers to compare the offers of major brands for products such as credit cards, personal loans, mortgages, vehicle loans, savings accounts and insurance. The company also offers a brokerage service, enabling consumers to purchase products directly on the C88 platform – for which C88 has secured relevant financial services licences through Southeast Asia.
Founder and CEO, J.P. Ellis, talked to us about the company’s background, its most recent series B financing round, and how they have found working with Kindrik Partners.
the c88 story
Prior to C88, founders Karl Knoflach and J.P. worked in private equity, finance, operations and leadership. The C88 senior team also consists of Gary Empl, a professional software developer with over two decades of experience leading teams in the creation of cutting-edge software in the financial services industry. Karl and Gary were part of the original founding team of einsurance.de in Munich in 1999 – a revolutionary company in the German insurance space which later became Check24.de, the German market-leader.
C88’s commercial teams in Indonesia, the Philippines and other markets are made up of senior bankers, insurance executives and sales operators with many years of experience in financial products sales and distribution. This experience, and the networks that senior team members bring, is crucial to C88 maintaining its market leader position.
J.P. notes that the Southeast Asian economy’s migration to digital begin with communities moving online for social needs. This was followed by online purchasing of physical goods, usually electronics and clothes, then travel bookings, followed more recently by financial services. This migration began in earnest in 2009, and by 2011 there were already major e-commerce providers. Online channel emerged in the insurance vertical in 2013, and C88 followed quickly releasing its platform in 2014.
J.P. observes that high traffic digital marketplaces, such as C88’s CekAja.com brand in Indonesia and eCompareMo.com brand in the Philippines, benefit consumers as well as underwriters. C88 can use its volume to create pricing efficiency for their customers. That volume also reduces the overall cost of acquisition for underwriters. Prior to the emergence of financial services e-commerce, banks and insurers basically only had two options for sales in the large markets of Southeast Asia: branches or physical agents. Digital sales through C88’s platform provides a highly cost-effective alternative.
challenges
Southeast Asia remains highly fragmented. Operating a multi-jurisdictional structure that is attractive to both consumers and providers, while keeping national regulators on-side, is challenging.
The company also faces the challenge of creating a common culture across national teams. Incentivising teams in different verticals and across countries to work together to solve problems creatively is an ever-evolving process of creative leadership and problem solving.
J.P adds that fortunately, C88’s team are multi-lingual and truly love what they do. It is not at all uncommon for them to log long hours during the week and weekends, because they genuinely enjoy what they do in building systems and solving problems for consumers in the region.
working with Kindrik Partners
As well as advising C88 on its venture capital financing rounds, Kindrik Partners’s Lee Bagshaw and Chris Wilson have helped C88 implement a variety of business critical structures including inter-company, cross-border licensing agreements and intellectual property documentation.
J.P says that Kindrik Partners provided high-quality and competitively-priced legal services in the critical areas of C88’s business. J.P. particularly appreciated the level of support he received when negotiating and completing the company’s recent Series B round led by Telstra Ventures – he says that the Kindrik Partners team know venture capital deals inside out, and made the negotiation of the financing documentation a breeze.
Kindrik Partners looks forward to helping C88 to continue its journey to become a leading fintech player in Southeast Asia and beyond.
Explore C88.
[Note: The firm’s name was changed to Kindrik Partners in July 2020 and references to the firm’s previous name have been updated.]
Auckland based startup 90 Seconds is the world’s leading cloud video production platform, allowing brands to purchase, plan, shoot, edit and review video anywhere in the world, online and on mobile.
Tim Norton, Founder and CEO, and Richard Chew, CFO, recently talked to us about 90 Second’s Series A capital raise and how they have found working with Kindrik Partners.
the 90 seconds story
Tim has been building tech companies for the last 14 years from SaaS to video platforms. It was after founding a media company that profiled the startup community through print and video, that Tim realised how hard it was to create videos. He says that the process was varied, it was difficult to shoot between countries and despite the fact that online video content was growing in popularity, professional videos were not easy to make.
This led to Tim’s idea to connect people around the world in order to create professional videos. 90 Seconds was launched in 2010, with Tim and one other developer creating online video production tools, off the back of seed and angel investment.
The concept and tools grew, and Tim managed to solve his previous issues through the creation of a cloud-based platform, which lets users handle almost every part of the video production process in one place. Brands can purchase, plan, shoot, edit and review video from the platform anywhere in the world, online and on mobile.
It was always part of Tim’s vision to build a truly global company, so two years in Tim began to establish a presence in Japan, Singapore, Australia, on top of NZ and the UK. The company became profitable in 2014 and Richard also joined as CFO. In 2015, Tim decided to hire a Head of Talent and they grew from 20 to 78 people in under a year. They then secured NZD$11m through their Series A capital raise led by Sequoia in 2016.
90 Seconds have now worked with more than 1000 brands including Google, Barclays, PayPal, Visa and Sony to produce over 10,000 high quality, fast, easy and affordable videos, in 70 countries.
The company has a global team working across Singapore, London, Tokyo, Manila, Sydney and Auckland, and they hope to open new offices in San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong and Berlin going forward.
Tim thinks that 90 Seconds has just scratched the surface of the global opportunity for cloud-based video production. They will continue to focus on their global growth and make video production even faster, as fast as Uber, publishing professional videos within anywhere between 24 hours to two to 3 weeks, no matter in the world the video creators are. They also plan to continue to develop the mobile version of their software so clients can manage every part of the production process on their tablets or smartphones.
challenges
Tim and Richard both agree that talent acquisition and management is the key to ensuring the success of 90 Seconds, as well as scaling growth at the right time. Tim says that we always need to hire as the business continues to grow, finding the right people to do the job within budget, is definitely an art.
There is definitely competition in the industry which comes in two types. The first being companies who have been around for the same time or longer than 90 whose established business practice. The second is startups, who have the speed and agility to move quickly and innovate. However, Tim says 90 Seconds has a unique position given their stage of growth. They not only understand the industry and are experienced enough to compete with established business but they are also nimble enough to compete with new ones, having the capacity to completely revamp their current product.
working with kindrik partners
Tim and Richard have both worked with lawyers throughout their careers and had varied experiences, prior to their first capital raise, 90 Seconds brought lawyers in get the job done and keep legal costs at a minimum.
They were recommended Kindrik Partners by Sequoia, the key investor leading the capital raising process, who have invested in a number of the world’s leading tech companies including Apple, Google, YouTube and Airbnb. Lee Bagshaw’s was the lead partner for the deal given his background in fund raising for global startups and extensive experience negotiating deals with Sequoia.
The 90 Seconds team worked closely with Lee and Chris Wilson on the intricate transaction which involved a re-domicile, re-structure and Series A all rolled into one, as well as a broad range of investors, from publicly listed companies, venture capital firms and private investors such as SKY TV New Zealand, Airtree Ventures, Beenext and Oleg Tscheltzoff founder of Fotolia.
Tim describes the process as being much longer than he expected, taking 6 months. He says it was like a giant Jenga of risk, investors and issues to manage and at times he was keen to concede on points to move the deal on. However, he says Lee kept them focused on the key issues and eventually they nailed it, and got a deal far better than I expected with Tim feeling more powerful as a founder and entrepreneur through Lee’s advice. Richard also notes that Lee’s knowledge and experience with Sequoia was completely invaluable.
Tim and Richard both agree that this process showed how important it is to partner with lawyers who have hands on experience in dealing with the legal and commercial complexity of capital raising for a global company. Tim notes that when you work with a range of investors on a global deal, you need a legal partner to get the deal done and Kindrik Partners provided the best advice which got them a big outcome.
summing up
90 Seconds are an inspiring example of a company with humble NZ beginnings, demonstrating a fast-growing and rapidly scaling business model, as well as attracting major technology investment players.
Sequoia’s backing shows that big US VCs now view New Zealand startups as global opportunities. Kindrik Partners will be closely watching 90 Seconds continue its rapid growth to become a significant global player.
Explore 90 Seconds.
[Note: The firm’s name was changed to Kindrik Partners in July 2020 and references to the firm’s previous name have been updated.]
Bambu is a Singapore-based robo-advisory startup. We talked to the company about working with Kindrik Partners through their successful Series A and B rounds.
bambu
Bambu is a B2B robo-advisor platform provider to banks and other financial institutions. Their digital platform allows these financial institutions to offer automated and technology-augmented investment services to their customers. The company started up in August 2016, and now has 70 staff with clients in America, Europe, the Middle East, and across Asia.
Bambu raised US$10m in their series B round which closed in June 2019. We spoke to their CEO and co-founder Ned Phillips about the fundraising process.
getting introduced to Kindrik Partners
Ned first heard about Kindrik Partners through an early investor and advisor to Bambu. When it came time to do their Series A round, Bambu had secured its first strategic investor, Franklin Templeton Investments, as well as its first venture capital investor, Wavemaker Partners. Since it was their first equity round, Ned knew it was time to bring in professional legal advisors.
As part of their search, Ned said that he met with a few of the bigger law firms, but none of them quite fit.
“You meet the partner”, he said, “but you know you’re not going to get the partner – the actual work always gets handed off to someone else in the firm.”
Kindrik Partners was transparent and honest when presenting their team. “What I liked about Kindrik Partners was that when I met Chris [Wilson] and Sarah [Yen], they said ‘this is us, you’re going to be working with us’, which was nice.“
“That made a big difference.”, says Ned. “It was important for us to know who we were dealing with, and it was very clear that it was them – that this was my team.”
raising the series a, then the series b
The series A round was very different from the seed round for Bambu. “The series A was the first time we were introduced to equity documents”, recalls Ned. “In our seed round we had used a SAFE convertible note, so there were no equity investors at that point.”
It was a big learning curve, particularly as a first-time founder. “My clearest memory about the Series A was the amount I learned about things I never knew about”, says Ned.
“There were a lot of things about equity documents that I wasn’t familiar with – tag-alongs, drag-alongs, founder vesting, liquidity preferences, warranties.”
(Unfamiliar with these terms? Click through to our startup glossary to learn more.)
When it came time for the series B round, Ned thinks that they were fortunate with how things went, and that it felt easier, attributing it to understanding more of the process and jargon.
“We had Franklin as a returning investor who was also willing to lead the round for us. We ended up with two investors filling the round – but it turned out that as soon as our round was full, everyone else wanted to come in, which was a nice problem to have.”
For other startups looking to raise money, Ned advises perseverance. “It’s not that it’s a numbers game, but it does take persistence. We reached out to so many investors. Many people give up at 10, or 20, 30, 40 people telling them no. But don’t be deterred – be polite, say thank you, and move on.”
working with Kindrik Partners
Ned describes the team as super helpful. “When we were first introduced, the fundraising process was new to me – the combination of Chris and Sarah on board to help was invaluable.”
Ned highlights Chris as an incredibly founder-friendly lawyer. “As a founder, you want to keep good investor relations, since it’s going to be a long-term relationship.”
“Chris could be the bad cop when he felt it was in the company’s best interests. He was also great at explaining what was important and what we could let go. He was strong, but fair.”
Ned also emphasises the complexity in negotiating a series A round. “Raising money isn’t just a negotiation on value (that part is done fairly quickly). There are all of these other things to decide in terms of what to hold onto and what to let go of.”
Ned recommends the law firm to other startup founders doing who are looking to raise funds for their company. “The team at Kindrik Partners really focuses on raising funds, and it’s so valuable to be talking directly with the people who are holding the pen on the documents, rather than just being a part of the sausage mill.”
“Put it this way – when it came time to do our series B, we didn’t spend one second thinking about using someone else. It was like, OK, we’re doing our round. Let’s get in touch with Kindrik Partners and get started.”
what’s next for bambu
It’s an exciting time for Bambu. The startup has lots of plans from the proceeds of their series B, including new products set for release and building their London presence. But Singapore remains home for the time being.
“Singapore is really helping fintech”, says Ned. “Honestly, it’s amazing – the Fintech Festival alone had 40,000 people attending last year. We’re selling to the world, but there’s no better place to do that from than Singapore.”
explore bambu
[Note: The firm’s name was changed to Kindrik Partners in July 2020 and references to the firm’s previous name have been updated.]
