Ardent Capital, a Hong Kong-based holding company that invests in, and helps create, technology companies located in Southeast Asia, received its first round of funding of undisclosed amount.
Backers included Siemer Ventures, Recruit Strategic Partners and GMO Venture Partners with additional aprticipation from the Ardent management team, along with other Southeast Asian entrepreneurs. In conjunction with the investment, Paul Santos from Wavemaker Labs (Singapore), joined the company’s board.
Co-founded by Paul Srivorakul, John Srivorakul, Tom Srivorakul, Piers Bennett, and CEO Adrian Vanzyl, Ardent Capital focuses on eCommerce and digital media.
It has main two main divisions:
– Ardent Ventures, which provides early stage investment such as Anything.lk, an eCommerce player in Sri Lanka co-funded by Dialog Axiata; Burufly.com, a social travel site in Indonesia co-funded by Walden International and Batavia; Playbasis.com, a gamification platform provider; Syndacast.com, a performance driven agency focused on travel with offices in five countries; and e27.co, a media company focused on technology startup news and events.
– Ardent Labs, an internal incubator that consists of 40 dedicated team members and is headed by Paul Srivorakul. It will launch its first two companies: WhatsNew, an eCommerce company that owns and operates several vertically focused eCommerce websites, and aCommerce, which provides end-to-end eCommerce solutions for start-ups, brands, retailers, and manufacturers in S.E. Asia.
Ardent operates offices in Bangkok where most of the Labs team is based, Jakarta and Singapore.
FinSMEs
03/06/2013