Driving Impact through Investments - 2024

At Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India (VVSEAI), “sustainability” is more than a buzzword. The ethos of sustainability resonates deeply with us, extending beyond mere economic considerations to encompass social and environmental imperatives. Anchored in a region brimming with emerging markets, we are grateful for the opportunities to invest in companies that provide solutions to address this region's large pain points. Our portfolio companies stand poised to make profound impacts on their stakeholders' lives, as they grow, particularly in accelerating economic empowerment and MSME enablement, promoting inclusiveness, and contributing to climate action in the region.

We take great pride in unveiling our third Annual Impact Framework and publish the quantitative impactive contributions of our portfolio companies.

(View the full summary here). Collectively, our portfolio companies have engendered the creation of over 50,000 jobs since our initial investments. Moreover, they have extended their reach to over 22 million micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), yielding a substantial US$42 million in revenue for these entrepreneurs. Furthermore, several of our ventures are actively contributing towards waste reduction and collectively avoided or reduced close to 160,000 tons of carbon emissions last year.

Focusing on Diversity

We believe that diversity is key to high performing teams, and gender diversity is an important dimension. It is with great satisfaction that we share that 35% of companies invested in our fourth fund have at least one woman founder. Our investment team boasts a 33% female composition, with three holding at least a Partner position. Furthermore, we are delighted to report a rise in the representation of women workforce within our portfolio companies, now comprising 38%.

Going Beyond

2023 was undoubtedly a challenging year for start-up founders in the region, given the strong macroeconomic headwinds, rising business costs and challenging capital markets. Yet, our founders exhibited remarkable resilience and unwavering dedication to their vision.

At VVSEAI, while we continue to seek ways to enrich our impact and ESG practices, I am proud of the progress we have made so far, thanks to the collective resources, creativity and skills of our growing community. Through sharing their impactful contributions, we celebrate and honour our start-up founders for their remarkable resilience and unwavering dedication to their vision. I would like to thank our team, portfolio companies and our growing community for being part of our exciting yet pertinent journey of delivering impact through investments.

Puiyan Leung

Partner

(For more information on our third Annual impact framework, please visit www.vertexventures.sg/impact.)

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