XL Ventures on Friday announced that it has received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to operate as a Venture Capital Fund Manager (VCFM).
The firm is looking to back early-stage startups focused on energy efficiency technologies, particularly startups building software, sensor, and AI-driven solutions aimed at improving energy efficiency in commercial buildings and power infrastructure.
XL Ventures founders Amit Sharma and Saroj Mishra said “While breakthrough innovations like fusion and new materials will be critical in the long term, we believe software and AI offer immediate and scalable tools to optimize complex, energy-intensive systems that currently run in silos with excessive safety margins.”
Amit Sharma, based in Singapore, previously served as Global Head of Business Development (Digital) for Tech Mahindra, while Saroj Mishra, based in London, co-founded Tazapay, a series A cross-border B2B payments company funded by Peak XV, RTP Global, PayPal and others.
With the MAS approval, the company plans to partner with select early-stage companies and support them to establish operations and scale in Asia. It is also looking to foster partnerships with large local conglomerates to enable market access and distribution.
“We see significant opportunities for European tech startups in the efficiency and smart-tech space. They fit well with the government and private sector agenda in Singapore, India and other Asian economies. We are currently helping several UK-based startups to get traction in these markets. While the US was the obvious scaling market for them in the past, the focus has now firmly shifted to Asia and some extent, the large GCC economies, which have a similar agenda,” they said.
