Openspace Ventures: Empowering Startups To Reach Their Fullest Potential

Openspace Ventures is a Southeast Asian investment firm that ignites growth for tech startups. They focus on startups across the region, with offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines and a presence in Malaysia. Their passion lies in tech-driven sectors like fintech, SaaS and health tech, but they're open to all innovative ideas. Beyond funding, they become partners in success, offering mentorship, valuable connections, and strategic guidance to help their portfolio companies thrive. Think of them as launchpads, combining investment muscle with regional expertise to propel Southeast Asia's future tech leaders. Their commitment extends beyond individual companies. They champion the entire ecosystem, tracking emerging trends and advocating for policies that create a fertile ground for startups to flourish. With that, why don’t you join me in learning more about Openspace Ventures with its Vice President, Juancho Jimenez.

Could you give a bit of background about you and your career? 

I started my career as an investment banker in Primeiro Partners (now partnered with Deloitte) a Philippine-based financial advisory firm. I spent close to 5 years there. Most of what I did there was financial advisory on transactions such as capital raises, M&A, restructuring and corporate rehabilitation for Philippine companies. I advised on deals in various sectors such as real estate, financial services, agriculture, and infrastructure. I was also a lecturer in Ateneo for 3 years. I was part of the finance and accounting department of the School of Management. In 2021, I joined Openspace as their first on-ground hire in the Philippines because the firm wanted to deploy more capital in the country. I was hired as an associate and, ever since then, I've been with Openspace focusing on our Philippine investments.

What is Openspace Ventures and what differentiates it from its other competitors in the region? 

We are a multistage investor, focusing exclusively on Southeast Asia since 2014. We started out as an early-stage investor with the belief that Southeast Asia was poised to be the world’s next growth region. We still firmly believe that today. Currently, we still have our core fund which focuses on early stage investments, but we also now have a growth stage fund which invests at the mid-stage. We also have a web3 fund called Ocular, which invests in funds and projects in the web3 space globally. We've grown to a team of over 40 people now and we have offices across the region. We’re dual headquartered in Singapore and Jakarta but we also have offices in Manila, in Bangkok, and Ho Chi Minh and have a presence in Malaysia. That's who we are.

What differentiates us from the other Southeast Asian venture capital firms is our core value of Active Intelligence. We believe this enables us to do things differently: we're curious, we're decisive, and we always keep an open mind. Active Intelligence defines our strategy in investing in this market. For me, this is best defined by two things. The first one is the way that the firm is built compared to other investors. We have what we call our Portfolio Success team. These are senior level professionals that work full time with the firm and partner with our portfolio companies to aid them along their growth journeys. Whenever we invest, we invest more than just capital, we invest resources that our founders can utilize. Our Portfolio Success team enables us to truly become active investors.  The second differentiator is that Openspace has always been early to set up on-ground offices because we believe that part of Active Intelligence is also being up to date with trends that are difficult to cover without being deep in our markets. We want people to be on the ground and to build vast local networks. I think those are the two main differentiators which all tie back to what I think Active Intelligence is.

What specific criteria do you use to identify promising startups in this region?

I think every firm has its own framework. Because we're an active investor, we prefer to make very high conviction bets over investments that are smaller but more spread apart. We have to build up our conviction fully before we make an investment. While it varies on a case to case basis, we evaluate a few key items that we have to believe in entirely before we make an investment.

I think the first is the market and whether we believe that within the context of Southeast Asia, it's the right sector, the right time, and the right customer. The questions that we ask ourselves are: is this certain sector large, ripe to be disrupted, and will this disruption happen within the time frame that we target? The second thing we look at is what the company is trying to solve within the sector and is it the right product that they're building for a particular pain point. We like to target companies that build solutions that have the chance to be greatly disruptive. The third is the team. The right team has to know their particular market very well. We like to invest in founders that have a comprehensive understanding of the customers they are serving and have a strong track record of leading. The last thing is the growth strategy and the roadmap to achieve scale. We have to believe that a company we invest in can grow to a certain size to achieve our target returns for our investors. These are some of the main things we look at in identifying promising startups.

How does Openspace Ventures stay ahead of the curve and identify emerging trends in the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem?

It links back to what I said earlier. Active Intelligence means being present and focused on your markets. In the Philippines for example, we were early in some of the companies that became successful startups in the Philippine ecosystem, such as Kumu and Pickup Coffee. Because we had people who had a good understanding of the local context we were able to build conviction early enough in these companies even before they grew to a certain size. The strong local relationships that we have in our markets also play an important role because we want to be known as a firm that people want to partner and build with.

Can you share a success story of a portfolio company where Openspace Ventures' involvement played a key role in their growth?

There are many examples. If you go across our entire portfolio, you'll see many different work streams that our Portfolio Success team has done a great job with in helping our portfolio companies deal with their most pressing issues. The support that any investor can provide at an early stage is very valuable, thus this is really one of our main focus areas as an organization. I’ll give some examples for our portfolio in the Philippines. Our director of technology has been very instrumental in the last year in helping Kumu rebuild its tech stack to achieve profitability. Our expert on talent has been helping Pickup Coffee think structurally about hiring and has introduced potential candidates for critical roles. Our expert on branding helped Sarisuki visualize a rebrand that would be exciting for its community leaders and other stakeholders such as its customers and farmers that it works with. These are some diverse examples that showcase how our Portfolio Success team can help our portfolio companies with some issues that all founders deal with at the early or mid stage.

What role do you see Openspace Ventures playing in shaping the future of the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem?

I think that of the many investors in this ecosystem, we’re one of the longest standing ones that have really focused on Southeast Asia and Southeast Asia alone because we really have confidence in the region's growth potential. We see ourselves as a key enabler who believes in the ecosystem enough to keep deploying capital and to keep deploying our time and resources throughout the peaks and valleys of the market cycle. Of course, the founders that we invest in will be the driving force in shaping the future, but we want to be known as a strong partner for everyone that we invest in or work with.

Juancho is a Vice President of Investments at Openspace Ventures. He is responsible for sourcing and evaluating deals and aiding portfolio companies in the Philippines. He is driven to help power startups in the country and region to achieve their full potential.  

Visit www.techshake.asia if you would like to know and connect more with Openspace Ventures.