Temasek VC unit CEO sees recent downturn as investment opportunity

Vertex Venture Holdings, a venture capital unit of Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings, expects the recent global downturn to offer investment opportunities in startups as VC investments are predicted to bottom out in about a year, its chief executive said.

Vertex Holdings CEO Chua Kee Lock said he is keeping watch on the South Korean fintech and other consumer-focused startups for investment, given the country’s strong mobile infrastructure.

Chua told The Korea Economic Daily in an interview on June 17 that the global VC market has been hit, especially in the tech sectors, and it will take “six to 12 months” for the market to bottom out.

But the long-term outlook for the market remains bullish, Chua stressed, saying this year and the next will be “great vintage years” for the VC industry that invests in early stage startups with excellent technology and business capabilities.

Vertex Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Temasek, which manages about $6 billion, has invested in more than 200 companies worldwide such as Grab, Southeast Asia’s largest ride-hailing operator, and Mobike, China’s bicycle-sharing startup.

“Now is the best time to invest for early stage VCs,” Chua said, given the recent declines in startup valuations.

In South Korea, Vertex Holdings invested $10 million in Bucketplace Co., an operator of the country's largest home interior platform, participating in its Series D round.

FINTECH

Vertex Holdings plans to invest in other South Korean startups, especially in the fintech sector.

“Korea is good in its financial technology-related sector” Chua said during the interview in Seoul where he visited for a startup fair.

South Korea’s strong mobile infrastructure provides a good environment for consumer-focused internet startups to create “interesting ideas” for the global markets, Chua said.

He sees information and communications technology (ICT) sectors including fintech as promising.

Domestic startups should always consider the global market, Chua advised, saying South Korea is a market only with 50 million consumers while other countries have markets with hundreds of millions of consumers.

Chua said it is hard to export stinky tofu, a Chinese form of fermented tofu, due to its strong odor despite its popularity on the mainland while it is easy to sell noodles, given their universality, to overseas markets, for example.

Before joining Vertex Holdings in 2008, Chua had invested in South Korean game publishers such as Com2uS Corp. as well as NDOORS Corp., a subsidiary of major game developer Nexon Co. currently, when he worked for Walden International, a US VC firm in the early 2000s.

(Updated with Chua’s quotes)

Write to Jong-Woo Kim at jongwoo@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.