Ascend Capital invests in three start-ups, has its eye on more
Ascend Capital has announced its intention to focus on series-A investment in start-ups in focus areas of e-commerce, logistics, fin-tech, and travel.
In two years after its setting up and running, Ascend Capital, the ICT-based investment arm of Ascend Group under the CP Group, is ready to invest in potential start-ups, said Kampanat Vimolnoht, business development manager of Ascend Capital.
It is set to invest at least US$1 million in each start-up.
Currently, Ascend Capita has already invested in three start-ups including Omise, SendIt, and a non-disclosed one. For this year, the company aims to leverage its three start-ups in its first batch with no more investment.
However, it has already invested totally US$11 million (in three start-ups).
“We have no maximum cap for investment. We are a corporate venture capitalist focused on growth stage start-ups,” said Kampanat.
Growth stage start-ups means they have both revenue and traction.
Meanwhile, the main criteria for Ascend Capital is to invest in start-ups which include product innovation and founding as well as a founding team.
Ascend Capital’s investment principle is to focus on leveraging assets of Ascend Group, adding value to start-ups rather than injecting money.
“We are totally different from traditional venture capital; we do not focus much on financial return. We emphasise on how we can leverage our assets to help add value to start-ups,” said Kampanat.
Ascend Capital’s role is to let founding teams become major shareholders. However, it is willing to invest up to 20 to 30 per cent in each start-up, requiring one seat in order to help the start-up to commericalise.
“We also require start-ups who want to be long-term players rather than building start-ups for sale. Thus, a start-up’s founding team should hold the major shares. But we are willing to invest more - as much as it is needed,” said Kampanat.
As for corporate venture capital, he said, Ascend Capital has no plans for how many start-ups it will invest in each year. It depends on how many interesting and potential start-ups there are.
Apart from an investment model, in the near future it will launch partnership programmes to get start-ups to work with Ascend Group and CP Group as business partners.
“Corporations and start-ups can be partners in order to leverage their assets to benefit each other. We will see many more corporate venture capitalists coming up to join in driving a start-up ecosystem in the country,” said Kampanat.
