venture capital lawyers

venture capital lawyers

We help companies, venture capital firms and family office investors across Southeast Asia with all types of funding rounds, including seed and angel rounds, VC financings, private equity investments, and pre-IPO rounds. Our capital raising work includes drafting and negotiating term sheets, convertible notes, subscription and shareholders’ agreements, venture debt documents and other standard investment documents, along with transaction mechanics (legal due diligence, approvals and closings).

We advised on over 80 Southeast Asia financing deals in 2020 alone. These deals ranged from small seed investments to significant series B and C financing rounds led by globally recognised VCs. This deal flow gives us great market knowledge of the latest investment trends in the region which we monitor in our Map of the Funding Terms.

agreeing terms

Because we see a large number of deals, we can provide useful behind the scenes input to companies as they negotiate headline terms with investors, including the investment amount, the pre-money valuation and whether the investment is to be tranched.

Once the big ticket items are agreed in principle, we help companies negotiate the detail of the term sheet.  The key economic and control terms are agreed in the term sheet, making it the most important phase of an investment deal.

formal documents

The style and friendliness of investment documents varies widely depending on the type of investor.

We draft and negotiate all of the types of documents used by seed, angel, VC, corporate, venture debt, private equity and pre-IPO investors.  We know the negotiating parameters that investors are likely to bring to the negotiation table and we share this knowledge with our clients.

We also promote better investment documentation and practices to founder and investor communities.

investors

We act for a number of venture capital funds, family offices and corporate venture teams on investments in Southeast Asian tech companies. We have dealt with virtually all of the professional tech investors active in the region.

"Kindrik Partners were invaluable in moving the deal forward as efficiently as possible by keeping the negotiations centred on the critical commercial points, and by providing insight as to what was common market practice in these areas."

venture capital resources

a primer on venture debt in southeast asia

Venture debt is fast becoming an alternative or complementary path for startups looking to get capital to accelerate their growth. Our guide covers what it is, the different forms of venture debt, why to use it compared to bank debt or equity financing, and key terms to consider.

subscribe to our newsletter and get the latest templates and tips for fast-growing startups in Southeast Asia

read our venture capital case studies and deal announcements

Singapore-based Pixibo provides personalised size and fit recommendations in real time for online retailers and their customers. The fashion-tech startup worked with Kindrik Partners on their recent series A raise.

We spoke to founder and CEO Rohit Kumar on Pixibo, the capital raising journey, and working with Kindrik Partners.

pixibo’s story

Rohit is an ex-Googler with experience across Europe and India, before heading to Singapore to head up operations for e-commerce advertising company Sociomantic. Between 2013 and early 2016 he launched and managed all of Sociomantic’s APAC operations and was part of the team that sold the business to dunnhumby, a Tesco company.

It was at Sociomantic that Rohit identified an issue plaguing fashion e-commerce sites. People were browsing clothes online, but very few of those visits converted into sales. “The average conversion rate is 1.5%”, says Rohit.

Pixibo’s technology was formally launched in 2018, after a few years in development.  The platform makes real-time size recommendations, personalised for every shopper and for every brand and SKU. For a retailer this boosts conversion rates, reduces return rate and improves customer satisfaction.  Its size recommendation engine is entirely white labelled and  can be natively integrated into online stores.

 “In online shopping, there’s a lot of pain points, from finding something you like, to working out which size is correct for you,” says Rohit.

“Decision fatigue can come in, reducing sales and resulting in increased return rates. The Pixibo platform works to reduce the friction felt by the consumer and the retailer.”

working with kindrik partners

“I was educating myself about series A rounds when I came across Kindrik Partners’s content online,” Rohit says.

“It was my first time doing an institutional round so I was spending more time online trying to get my head around the legal terminology and the types of things that show up. Drag alongs, tag alongs, liquidation preference clauses. There’s a lot to understand.”

(confused? see our startup glossary )

“It looked like Kindrik Partners were the best lawyers for startups,” says Rohit.

“It was clear from the content that was available online that it was their area of expertise. When I eventually needed to bring in a lawyer to help with my round, I reached out.”

on the series A round

Pixibo already had several angel investors prior to their series A round in 2018, but the startup did not have any VCs on board, so the experience was new.

 “We had VPs from Google who invested at an early stage, as well as strong private angel investors. But this was the first institutional round, and it felt very different.”

A big learning was how much longer the process took. “I thought you’d just go out to market, pitch, and then get them to sign. I eventually came to understand the level of process that institutional investors require, and how this stretches out the timeline.”

“There’s a great level of detail required. From investor interest to the term sheet to drafting the shareholder’s agreement, share subscription agreement and the whole nine yards, to signing, to getting money in the bank… it can take a long time!”

Fortunately, runway was less of a concern for Pixibo. “We weren’t in a rush. We had revenue, so there was no immediate need to get funding in”, says Rohit. “We already had a recurring revenue from our licence fees we were charging. That started conversations for us with investors, too.”

working with kindrik partners

Rohit found working with Kindrik Partners and partner Lee Bagshaw provided a lot of value during the capital raising process.

“Working with Lee was great. He was very responsive to my requests and concerns and was always happy to get on a call if need be to walk through things with me.”

Kindrik Partners’s experience in capital raising in Southeast Asia was also an asset to Pixibo.

“As a first time founder, sometimes you’re like wait, hang on, why is that in there? Lee was invaluable in these situations. He understood what terms were negotiable and what terms weren’t, and was instrumental during all of the back and forth with investors.”

tips for founders embarking on their A round

Rohit has a few tips for those entrepreneurs who are considering going out to do their series A round.

  • start out 6 -8 months before you need the capital: especially if it’s your first institutional round (it gets easier with a follow-on round, because you’ll have existing investors to help you get your foot in the door).
  • consider a rolling close: since you’re looking for investors who are the right fit in a long-term partnership, having a rolling close allowed Pixibo to get the money in the bank from the investors who were committed, while continuing to find the perfect fit to close out our round.
  • beware the temptation to think that any money will do: in the beginning, the temptation is to look for anyone with a cheque book, but then you get smarter. Find the VC’s thesis and their sweet spot, and get smarter at looking at their portfolio to see if you fit in. Who will be interested in your story?
  • don’t raise too soon: Traction is important. Wait until you’re in a strong position to raise, if you can. In our case, as we’re B2B, we had clear proof points that our product works, solves a real problem for online retailers and that they are willing to pay us for it. Investors will want to see that you have put in the hard work and that capital will accelerate growth.
  • have a plan for the money. You have to articulate why you need capital now, and how it will help your business.

what’s to come for pixibo

The future is bright for Pixibo, and Rohit is looking ahead to expand into new markets. “The most exciting thing about us is that we’re location agnostic. The problems retailers have in Singapore are the same ones that they have in Sydney. The opportunity is massive.”

[Note: The firm’s name was changed to Kindrik Partners in July 2020 and references to the firm’s previous name have been updated.]

Our Southeast Asia team have advised Singapore based Pencil (Pencil Technologies) on its recently completed series seed funding round. The round was led by Singapore VC Wavemaker Partners and supported by SG Innovate.

Pencil is a creative AI company that uses AI pattern detection to help creative and media teams generate content at speed and scale. Their software platform helps companies and agencies produce the volume of personalised content needed for modern digital advertising campaigns.

Creative teams can brief the Pencil platform and then review the generated content. Feedback from the creatives, in the form of approvals or edits, is used to train and further refine the AI. In turn, the AI provides feedback to the creatives, suggesting whether generated content is likely to be effective, differentiated and “on brand”.

Pencil Founder Will Hanschell said, Kindrik Partners were instrumental to a fast and favourable outcome on the round. As first-time founders, we relied on their partnership not only for support with the necessary documentation, but for advice on standard processes and critical regional context on terms.

The funding will be used to grow the company’s engineering and customer support teams, increase the depth of the proprietary datasets, and further refine the underlying technology.Pencil is a great example of the recent trend in VC investment preferences towards deep tech platforms, particularly AI and machine learning. Check out our related blog post for more on VC trends emerging in the first half of 2019.

Kindrik Partners recently advised Singapore-based Horizon Quantum Computing with its seed-plus round led by Sequoia. The latest round brings its total seed financing to US$3.2 million (SG$4.5 million).

Previous investors SGInnovate, Abies Ventures, DCVC, Qubit Protocol, Summer Capital and Posa CV also participated in the round.

Horizon Quantum Computing develops programming tools to simplify the process of developing software for quantum computers. The company was founded in 2018 by CEO Dr Joe Fitzsimons. The additional funding will be used to speed up product development, engage with customers and early adopters, and strengthen its team.

“Our tools will greatly increase the applicability of quantum computing, opening up new use cases and enabling easier adoption of the technology,” said Fitzsimons.

 “We view quantum computing as an emerging technology that will become inevitable in the future. We are certain that quantum technology will be a game-changer and will have a tremendous impact on the world – from how governments and organisations work, right down to our everyday lives,” said Dr Lim Jui, Chief Executive Officer of SGInnovate who led the company’s seed round in 2018.

Chris Wilson, Kindrik Partners partner, says of the deal, “We were pleased to have been able to help out on this financing round with Horizon as they gear up bring this truly cutting-edge innovation to market and look forward to watching their journey.”

Read our other recent deal announcements here.