Shaping the journeys of leading founders in India and Southeast Asia through their dedication and support; Singapore-based venture capital firm Jungle Ventures is launching First Cheque@Jungle. This new offering is based on the core principles of supporting exceptional teams with innovative ideas; and providing them with a sizeable first cheque with no minimum ownership criteria. The programme will support entrepreneurs at the idea, pre-seed, and seed stages.
The First Cheque@Jungle programme introduces a first-of-its-kind investment structure. Structured in a manner to ensure that right-sized early-stage capital will be available for big ideas but with limited early-stage dilution. In this regard, the firm will invest a minimum of $2 million; with 50% in equity and 50% as a no-cap convertible note. Moreover, the firm will lead or co-lead subsequent Series A funding rounds with investments ranging from $5 million to $10 million per company.
Providing the right support to leaders on their journey, the firm aims to strike a partnership that matches the company’s goals. This will be carried through by a one-on-one focus from seasoned partners at the firm. In an interview, Amit Anand, partner at Jungle Ventures, revealed that the investments will be from Jungle Ventures’ latest $600 million fund. Moreover, the founders would be part of the investment in their own capacity as angel investors.
“We don’t need anyone but the founders and us to validate if we are building something to last here, and we will demonstrate it with our continued capital commitments,” shared Jungle Ventures.
More about the First Cheque@Jungle Approach
Jungle Ventures was established by founding partners Amit Anand and Anurag Srivastava. For the First Cheque approach, the firm takes an unconventional route. Instead of a cohort-based approach with classroom lectures on business building; the programme will focus on the true requirements of business on a one-on-one basis.
To implement this idea, the programme led by Jungle’s experienced partners will focus on delivering unparalleled access to early-stage business-building expertise. Jungle brings over 200 years of experience to the table; it has partnered with over 45 founders in diverse sectors like, consumer brands and platforms, B2B, and software. The firm has created more than $12 billion in enterprise value, with over $2.9 billion in follow-on capital raised.
The selected companies will work closely with the founders of Jungle’s leading portfolio companies like Livspace, AMP, and Paysense. These venture builders will work alongside Jungle to help early-stage startups achieve product-market fit swiftly.
“Jungle wants to address two key issues: founders that give up as much as 30% of their companies in seed rounds and investors that use a one-size-fits-all approach for their accelerator, incubator, or cohort-based programs. Founders need one-to-one attention from key partners and stakeholders, want capital on favourable terms, and are looking for a long-term and meaningful capital partnership with their investors,” said Rishab Malik, partner for seed investments at Jungle Ventures.
According to Malik, Jungle has used the strategy applied with FirstCheque for some of its partnerships, like Moglix, Livspace, and Kredivo. The firm has also recently partnered with companies like AMP, HypeFast, and CoTo. Furthermore, it recently merged with Singapore-based healthtech investor HealthXCapital (HXC) to invest in the segment across India and Southeast Asia.