Origgin Capital, the venture capital arm of Singapore private equity firm Origgin Ventures, has announced the launch of its second venture fund to co-create and scale spin-offs from universities and research institutes across Asia.
The new vehicle, Origgin Capital Fund 2, has a target size of S$30 million ($23 million) and will target up to 50 early-stage startups, Origgin said in a statement.
The inaugural fund raised S$10 million in 2022, a company spokesperson told DealStreetAsia.
“Fund 2 represents our continued commitment to bridge the gap between the lab and industry, ensuring promising research becomes industry-ready and delivers global impact,” said Clarence Tan, founder and managing partner of Origgin Capital.
The firm’s Venture Co-Creation framework pairs university-developed technologies with venture-building teams, corporate partners, and market access channels, aiming to improve the success rate of deeptech commercialisation.
Venture Co-Creation is the process of creation and management of startups to address business pain points while guiding startups to initial success, Origgin said.
It aims to commercialise deep tech intellectual property in sectors including advanced engineering, medtech, sustainability, agri-food, and ICT.
“Origgin bridges the gap between academia and industry, significantly increasing the success rate of deeptech commercialisation,” the company said.
To strengthen access to China’s market, Origgin said it has partnered with Jinan Xianxing (Singapore); and Tsinghua Technology Ventures, the investment arm of Chinese incubator TusStar, which operates over 150 incubation bases in China and has helped more than 40 companies go public.
Origgin Capital, the investment arm of Origgin Ventures, has an established presence in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, and China. The firm said it aims to leverage this cross-border network to address global challenges through commercially viable research spin-offs.
The launch of Fund 2 comes as Southeast Asia’s startup funding activity slumped in June, with both equity deal volume and investment value falling sharply from the previous month and a year earlier, dragged by the absence of big-ticket late-stage transactions.
Startups in the region raised $349.7 million across 38 equity deals in June, down 46.7% from $656.3 million across 47 such deals in May. Compared with a year earlier, total funding fell 42.7% from $610 million across 49 deals, according to proprietary data from DealStreetAsia.
