SeaTown Holdings, an indirect subsidiary of Singapore’s state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings, is raising funds for its private capital fund from private investors for the first time.
The fund-raising, targeting mass-affluent investors in Singapore, is via a tie-up with digital wealth-management platform Kristal.AI, which will fractionalize the minimum investment, the platform said in a press release Wednesday.
The tie-up is the first chance for private investors to access Temasek’s and SeaTown’s deal flow, the release said. Temasek is one of the most prolific deal-makers globally among its sovereign-linked and sovereign wealth fund peers; its investments have included marquee plays such as early moves into Grab, Alibaba, Airbnb, Uber and Tokopedia.
$1 Billion Commitment
SeaTown and Temasek have committed $1 billion to the fund, with SeaTown expecting to raise another $200 million to $300 million from external investors, the release said. The fund will be geographically diversified, with a focus on Asia, the release said.
For the SeaTown fund, the fractionalization means the minimum investment will be lowered to $100,000 from $5 million, the release said. That is meant to put the fund within reach of accredited mass-affluent investors, moving beyond the High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNWIs) and institutional investors, Kristal.AI said.
«We have seen rapidly rising demand for private equity and private market products in recent years. This used to be an exclusive space for institutional investors, but now technology and platforms have enabled individual investors to participate in such deals as well,» Vivek Mohindra, co-founder of Kristal.AI, said in the statement.
«Democratising Access»
«By fractionalizing and reducing the minimum investment, a much larger client pool can now access premium investment products, and better diversify their investment portfolios,» Mohindra said. «We’re glad to see bigger funds like SeaTown responding to the market’s growing demand by democratizing the access to much sought-after investment products.»
Kristal.AI is a digital private wealth advisory and fund-management group targeting mass affluent clients globally; it offers more than 200 premium funds, including private equity/venture capital and structured notes as well as pre-initial public offering (IPO) deals.
The platform, established in 2017, has raised a total of $15.4 million in venture capital from six investors, including the Desai Family Office, Sudhanshu Sanadhya, Chiratae Ventures, Amit Gupta, Shailesh Rao and WorldPeak Holdings, according to Crunchbase data. IDG Ventures India was also reported as an investor.
SeaTown Investments
Sanadhya is a managing director of JPMorgan Chase in Singapore. Rao was previously the head of India and Southeast Asia at TPG Growth and the vice president for media, mobile and platforms, for Asia Pacific at Google. Gupta was a founding partner at Newquest Capital.
SeaTown focuses on alternative absolute-return strategies, managing multi-asset and public credit strategies via open-end funds and private investment strategies via closed-end funds, the release said.
Among its investments, SeaTown has interests in Prime US REIT, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust (CICT), Digital Core REIT, Nanofilm Technologies International, Ascendas REIT and ST Engineering.
SeaTown has previously handled deals via SGX-backed private market platform ADDX, which is a multi-asset exchange for funds, bonds and equities and products representing private equity and venture capital, private debt, real estate, hedge funds and crypto funds.
