FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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TukTuks II to focus on seed, Series A funding for start-ups

TukTuks II to focus on seed, Series A funding for start-ups

Start-up fund 500 TukTuks is launching TukTuks II, which will focus on investing in seed to Series A stages of funding, as Thai start-ups also need funding for growth stage.

The new fund has been officially set at US$15.4 million (Bt545 billion), up from the former target of $10 million. The fund gained massive interest from both high-net-worth individuals and corporate investors, which led to the increase in fund size. With more capital committed, 500 TukTuks is moving forward at full speed.
The team at 500 TukTuks say they strongly believe in the potential of Thailand and Thai people and hope that someday there will be remarkable, global-scaled start-ups from Thailand.
To confirm the status of the most active investors in Thailand and Southeast Asia, 500 TukTuks announced the list of its latest 10 companies of its Batch 3 investment, which brings a total of 30 companies into its portfolio to date.
The latest 10 start-ups in Batch 3 are Pomelo, FinAccel, FavStay, Tourkrub.co, TrustingSocial, PerroPack, Gnowbe, Asiola, Cookly and Freshket.
Pomelo is a top online fashion e-commerce in Thailand and Southeast Asia, while FinAccel is the first point-of-sale financing solution in Southeast Asia to provide instant credit checks and “buy now pay later” loans to e-commerce and m-commerce consumer with smartphones. 
FavStay is an online holiday-home booking platform, and Tourkrub.co is a platform for all outbound tour packages. TrustingSocial provides credit scoring for the under-banked in emerging markets by analysing data from telecoms and lenders. 
PerroPack is a semi-vertically integrated pet-care company. Gnowbe is a micro-content employee development, training and engagement tool that embraces a mobile-first strategy for content creation and consumption. 
Asiola is a localised reward- and equity-based crowd-funding platform. Cookly is a booking platform for culinary activities and tourism. Freshket is a marketplace for fresh food and restaurants.
Of the 30 companies in its portfolio, almost 10 have already received follow-on funding or are about to close the next round of funding, which is quite an impressive proportion given that the fund is not even one and a half years old, said Natavudh Pungcharoenpong, co-manager of 500 TukTuks.
Krating Poonpol, also co-manager of 500 TukTuks, said: “We have reached the 30th investment in our portfolio, which we believe marks the status of the most active seed investors in Thailand and in Southeast Asia. But we still want to invest in around 30 more companies.”

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