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Media Kit
• ADB Ventures Fact Sheet
• ADB Ventures Investment Data Sheet
• ADB Ventures Equity Fund Portfolio Snapshots

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (17 March 2021) — The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) new venture arm, ADB Ventures, has announced its two first investments. ADB Ventures invests in early-stage technology companies globally that address urgent development challenges in emerging Asia and the Pacific.

Euler Motors Pvt. Ltd., based in India, is an electric vehicle manufacturer and fleet operator focused on last-mile commercial logistics, accelerating India’s and Southeast Asia’s transition to sustainable mobility. Euler Motors has raised $9.4 million in Series A funding with participation by ADB Ventures, Blume, Inventus, and other investors.

Smart Joules Pvt. Ltd., based in India, provides energy efficiency-as-a-service for large hospitals and commercial buildings, delivering savings of up to 40% on energy costs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Smart Joules has raised $4.1 million in its Series A financing led by Sangam and ADB Ventures. Max I. Limited and other angel investors also participated in this round.

The investments were made by the ADB Ventures Equity Fund, which is ADB Ventures’ first investment fund.

“ADB Ventures will spur high-impact cleantech, agritech, fintech, and healthtech innovations in developing Asia with its ecosystem building. Our vision is to crowd-in $1 billion of commercial investment towards the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,” said ADB Vice-President Ashok Lavasa.

The ADB Ventures Equity Fund received $60 million in funding commitments in 2020 from Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Government of the Republic of Korea, Climate Investment Funds’ Clean Technology Fund, and the Nordic Development Fund. The Fund focuses on climate and gender impact in South and Southeast Asia.

“The ADB Ventures Equity Fund is the perfect vehicle for Finland to turn our development priorities into action. The Fund will catalyze private sector finance to address climate challenges, while integrating gender aspects. Finland stands together with ADB to meet the region’s development challenges,” said Finland’s Under-Secretary of State for Development Policy Elina Kalkku.

“Korea’s venture ecosystem has been accelerating the transition toward an innovative digital and green economy. We look forward to working closely with ADB Ventures to promote leading clean technologies in the Asia-Pacific region and achieve mutual prosperity in the post-COVID-19 era,” said Deputy Minister for International Affairs of the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance Taesik Yoon.

“We see ADB Ventures among those unique vehicles capable of mobilizing public risk capital and private sector capital, while taking advantage of ADB’s extensive operations and networks for climate innovation,” said Climate Investment Funds Head Mafalda Duarte.

“ADB Ventures represents a timely complement to traditional development approaches through the involvement of the private sector in addressing critical climate change challenges. We are pleased to be working with the ADB on this important initiative that has particular relevance in the post-COVID recovery,” said Nordic Development Fund Managing Director Karin Isaksson.

ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region.

Media Contact:

John Larkin
Principal Communications Specialist, ADB
privatesectormedia@adb.org

Nattasuda Anusonadisai
Communications Specialist, ADB Ventures
natt.consultant@adb.org
+66 635835399

On December 9, 2020, the Singapore venture catalyst SGInnovate presented the third edition of the Deep Tech Summit to explore tech innovations that can increase resiliency and sustainability after the pandemic. ADB Ventures is a proud strategic partner of the Deep Tech Summit 2020.

Deep Tech Summit 2020, which was a virtual event, brought together industry practitioners making tech breakthroughs in the fields of food science and technology, MedTech, the hydrogen economy, and advanced manufacturing. 

Speakers and moderators at Deep Tech Summit included Kay Firth-Butterfield (Head of AI and Machine Learning and Member of Executive, World Economic Forum), Renee Lo (General Manager – Data and AI, Microsoft), Dr. Francis Ho (Senior Vice President, Samsung Catalyst Fund), and Abel Ang (Group CEO, Advanced MedTech). 

Deep Tech Summit 2020 was a part of this year’s Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH), which is taking place this week from December 7-11, 2020. 

Watch the recorded sessions from Deep Tech Summit 2020 at the link below:

FluoroSat, DAIZ, Let’s Plant Meat, and Crowde won the startup prizes at this year’s Future Food Asia 2020 conference. ADB Ventures is a Key Partner of Future Food Asia 2020, supporting the Conference through ADB Ventures Labs. 

The Future Food Asia 2020 conference was held virtually from September 21 to September 25 with a focus on innovative solutions for making the agri-food value chain more resilient. 

Launched in 2017, Future Food Asia (FFA) supports startups with transformative solutions for the agriculture and food industry. With nearly 200 startups applying for the FFA 2020, ADB Ventures supports the Conference through ADB Ventures Labs – recognizing and rewarding Asia Pacific entrepreneurs building sustainable innovations to eliminate inefficiencies and scarcities in the agri-value food chain. 

“Future Food Asia does invaluable work by empowering startups to resolve sustainable food production challenges in the region and beyond,” said Dominic Mellor, ADB Ventures Principal Investment Specialist. “The ADB Ventures team was inspired by the innovations that the AgriTech and FoodTech companies presented at this year’s Future Food Asia Conference.” 

11 shortlisted finalists pitched their innovations virtually to a live global audience of over 600 industry leaders and investors, and the conference jury selected the Australian company FluoroSat for the US$ 100,000 Future Food Asia Award. 

FluoroSat’s team pioneered the FluroSenseTM crop analytic system, which provides real-time alerts on crop performance and helps agribusinesses enhance sustainable management practices. The system now monitors over 7 million acres of arable land and is used by advisors and agronomists in 14 countries. 

“FluroSat is very excited to be selected as a winner of the FFA prize, and establish this important partnership to support our global expansion and bring the climate-smart agriculture decision support tools to farmers and agronomists all over the world!”, said Dr. Anastasia Volkova, CEO, and Founder of FluroSat. 

Meanwhile, plant-protein startups DAIZ (Japan) and Let’s Plant Meat (Thailand) both won Future Food Asia’s Bühler and Givaudan Plant Protein Award. Bühler Group and Givaudan were co-hosts of FFA2020’s exclusive Plant Protein Masterclass. 

“We congratulate both teams at DAIZ and Let’s Plant Meat for earning the Plant Protein Award of this Future Food Asia edition,” said Dominique Kull, Head of Technology at Bühler Group. “The two winners prove that Asia, a long-time protein importer, will take a central role in scaling the plant-based meat revolution.” 

FFA partner Corteva AgriscienceTM awarded its Carteva Agriscience Prize for Food Resilience to the Indonesian company Crowde, an agri-focused fintech company that created a peer-to-peer microfinancing ecosystem that empowers small farmers across Indonesia. 

“The Crowde team stood out as one that is most closely aligned to Corteva’s purpose of enriching smallholder farmers and workers along the food and agriculture ecosystem to achieve 

food security and resilience through technology innovation,” said Peter Ford, President of Asia Pacific, Corteva Agriscience. 

“We were impressed by the data-powered AgriTech solutions from the winning startups,” Mellor remarked after the conference. “FluoroSat’s analytics system and the plant-based meat alternatives from DAIZ and Let’s Plant Meat will prove to be game-changers for sustainable food production. Meanwhile, Crowde’s fintech platform will empower agricultural suppliers across the region to meet growing crop demands.” 

For more information about Future Food Asia’s work with AgriTech and FoodTech startups, click here.

2020 marks the 6th consecutive year of the She Loves Tech Annual Global Startup Competition, the world’s largest startup competition for women and technology. ADB Ventures is She Loves Tech’s official Impact Partner. 

In spite of the global pandemic, the competition will expand yet again due to overwhelming demand. Our partners, ATAST, Circle, Girls in Tech Macau, Gobi Partners, Hatch, Kerala Startup Mission, Longyan, NCSF, QBO, Yazamiyot, Raintree, Tanggram, Techcode, Turtle Venture, Unlimited, and Women In Tech HK, will run the She Loves Tech competition in over 30 countries across North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia – and will be completely virtual.

“She Loves Tech was one of the best experiences for me. I was surrounded by the most powerful women in their field, building startups against all odds” raves Jayantika Soni, Resync Technologies, Singapore Winner 2019. 

“One of the things we’re most excited about is that going fully online gives us a great opportunity to reach a wider audience and help even more entrepreneurs than we ever could have,” says Rhea See, co-founder of She Loves Tech. 

“Without women, we are unable to solve the world’s greatest challenges. Women represent a new generation of innovation and disruptive thinking,” remarks co-founder Virginia Tan. 

“Empowering women in technology will change the way we live and work, and our competition is one of the best ways to springboard that change,” says co-founder Leanne Robers. 

The competition gives the world’s most promising women-led or women-impact startups mentorship and guidance to grow and scale their business, and showcases them to a global audience of top investors and influencers from the tech community. Previous ambassadors, mentors, judges and speakers include Tim Draper (Founder, Draper University), Ankiti Bose (CEO, Zilingo), Arielle Zuckerberg (Partner, Coatue Management), Jane Sun (CEO, CTrip), and Lesly Goh (Former CTO, World Bank).

Tech startups that have at least one female founder and/or is targeting a mostly female consumer/end-user base can take their business to the next level with the She Loves Tech 2020 Global Startup Competition by clicking below.

BANGKOK, THAILAND (25 June 2020) — The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) impact investment platform, ADB Ventures, has teamed with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to support technology startup TakeMeTour to develop the LocalFarm online platform and help mitigate the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on Thailand’s tourism sector.

LocalFarm enables farmers and gardeners who had relied on tourism for their incomes to market seasonal fruits, vegetables, salads, and processed fruits directly to consumers. It features agricultural products from more than 50 sellers across Thailand. TakeMeTour charges suppliers with no fees or commissions to access the platform.

“We are thrilled to launch LocalFarm, which will give our local guides and Thai farmers the opportunity to earn income and connect with new customers in their communities,” said Co-founder of TakeMeTour Taro Amornched. “It also opens a great opportunity for farmers once tourism revives. We’re looking forward to working with ADB Ventures and the Tourism Authority of Thailand to scale this platform across the country.”

“In this unprecedented crisis, it is impressive to see how quickly and efficiently TakeMeTour has developed an innovative online platform to help front-line tourism workers earn alternative income streams,” said ADB Ventures Senior Investment Specialist Dominic Mellor.

TakeMeTour is a tourism marketplace that for the past five years has matched tourists with independent local guides. It developed LocalFarm after anticipating that Thai local guides, many of whom operate farms and gardens, would lose income during the pandemic.

ADB Ventures provides venture capital investments and technical assistance to highly-scalable technology businesses in Asia and the Pacific, supporting their expansion into emerging markets and helping countries achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Investors in ADB Ventures include Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Clean Technology Fund, the Nordic Development Fund, and the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance.

ADB and TAT have supported TakeMeTour through technical assistance since 2017. It has become the Greater Mekong Subregion’s largest peer-to-peer tourism platform, featuring tours and activities hosted by more than 25,000 local experts, more than 60% of whom are women. ADB Ventures provided TakeMeTour $150,000 in Seed grant funding for LocalFarm product development as well as regional market validation. ADB Ventures Seed grants are reimbursable and give ADB Ventures the option to make future equity investments.

ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region.

All systems go for ADB Ventures

ADB formally authorized the ADB Ventures platform in late January, and earlier this month we were proud to achieve the first close of our inaugural investment fund. We raised US$ 50 million, exceeding our target. After a year and a half of project preparation, we are finally ready to start making investments.

ABD Ventures has a new website

A new ADB Ventures website is now live at ventures.adb.org. Follow us there (and also on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, if you don’t already) as we kick off our next phase of operations.

Welcoming some of the world’s most innovative funders to ADB Ventures

ADB Ventures is excited to be supported by Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, the Clean Technology Fund, the Nordic Development Fund, and the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, which contributed to Investment Fund 1.

ADB Director General for Private Sector Operations Mike Barrow recently welcomed ADB Ventures’ investors, commenting: “These commitments by some of the world’s most forward-thinking development funders will be catalytic in achieving ADB’s vision to convene one of the region’s largest impact venture platforms.”

Saumya Kailasapathy, who leads ADB Ventures’ fundraising, urges potential investors to get in touch.

ADB Ventures is ready to hit the ground running

Our team spent a year and a half setting up our deal sourcing, screening, and due diligence processes before we commenced operations. Our Manila-based investments team, led by Daniel Hersson, is fully staffed and already evaluating deals.

COVID-19 creates challenges and opportunities

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many of the companies we would like to support to delay their fundraising, which could push some Q3 2020 investments into the fourth quarter or later.

As we all adapt to the challenges brought by COVID-19, ADB has pledged its full effort this year to helping the Asia Pacific recover from the pandemic. On 13 April, ADB announced that it was tripling its initial COVID-19 response package to US$ 20 billion. ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa remarked that the Bank’s assistance package would be delivered quickly to “the governments and the private sector in our developing member countries to help them address the urgent challenges in tackling the pandemic and economic downturn.”

ADB Ventures will be part of this effort. We are actively screening COVID-19-related solutions referred to us by co-investors and partners such as TusStar, Plug and Play, D3 Jubilee, and Nordic Innovation House. Working with our sovereign ADB colleagues, ADB Ventures will explore how these technologies can be part of an integrated package to help Developing Member Countries address and recover from this pandemic while building resilience to future health crises.

Keep an eye on our website and social media channels for updates as we work on this – and if you know of any technologies relevant to our efforts, please bring them to our attention by using this form.

Through ADB Ventures Labs, we continue to pursue opportunities for scalable climate and gender impact

In the meantime, we’re intensifying our search for highly scalable impact technology solutions through our ADB Ventures Labs.

Labs assess commercial demand for impact-related technology in particular sectors, then source and match solutions from all around in the world.

We have several Labs in progress, coordinated by team member Jason Lusk:

• The Building Energy Challenge, in partnership with New Energy Nexus, is matching the commercial real estate sector’s demand for energy efficiency technologies to technology innovators with energy efficiency solutions that include energy management and smart building solutions.
• Imagine H2O Asia, in partnership with Imagine H2O and Enterprise Singapore, is matching ADB client utilities’ demand for water technologies to innovation from all over the world.
• Travel Lab Asia, in partnership with the Pacific-Asia Travel Association and Plug and Play, is matching the hospitality sector’s demand for clean technologies to energy, water, and circular economy and waste management solutions.
• Future Food Asia Awards 2020, in partnership with ID Capital, is identifying agritech and food security solutions well suited to ADB developing member countries.

In addition, we devoted the second half of 2019 to the Fintech Challenge Vietnam, in which ADB Ventures partnered with the State Bank of Vietnam and several commercial banks to uncover opportunities to scale financial inclusion, particularly for women business owners. We are now working with partners to operate the Fintech Challenge Myanmar.

Working with funders to expand operations