Ardent Capital
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US venture capital firm Wavemaker Partners has taken over the venture portfolio of Thailand-based Ardent Capital. Wavemaker will manage the portfolio after its merger with Ardent Ventures, the GP's venture capital arm. If you are interested in investment for your own company, or in partnering with any of the Ventures companies, please contact the team at Wavemaker. Thanks for all your support the last five years! Bangkok, July 2016. Here's the reality check: Ardent Capital basically shut down as an active fund in 2016. The founders were solid operators with real exits under their belts, but they couldn't sustain the VC model and handed their portfolio to Wavemaker. "The only time we make a dollar is when we sell a business," Vanzyl says, explaining that Ardent changes no fees whatsoever to its porfolio companies. "If that's how your business model works, we damn well better build stuff that someone wants to buy and someone will pay a lot of money for. Their no-fee model was noble but unsustainable. If you're seeing pitch decks with their name on it today, you're likely dealing with legacy portfolio management, not new investments. They built some solid companies like aCommerce, but as an active fund, they're history.
- —Best for: Nothing - they shut down in 2016
- —Watch out for: Any current pitches claiming Ardent backing
- —Known for: Strong operator backgrounds but unsustainable fund model
Ardent Ventures invests in early stage technology companies across Southeast Asia. We focus on eCommerce opportunities - including sourcing, fulfillment, retail, demand generation and payment gateway among others - but are also open to investments in other sectors. We believe that being a great VC goes well beyond making smart investment decisions; it means contributing our operational knowledge, resources, and commitment to ensure that each of our portfolio companies reaches its maximum potential.
It primarily invests in Seed round in Indonesia based startups. Its investments are spread across a wide range of sectors from Retail to Consumer and Enterprise Applications. Ardent Capital has made 12 investments in Seed stage with an average round size of $1.25M, 2 investments in Series A stage with an average round size of $8.5M and 1 investment in Series B stage with an average round size of $15M. The firm seeks to invest in e-commerce companies operating in business-to-consumer and business-to-business sectors across Southeast Asia.
His roles at Google included Country Head for GCS Thailand, the Payments team inside Google's Next Billion Users initiative, and most recently with the VCs and Startups Partnerships team. Prior to Google, he was based in Bangkok as CEO and cofounder of Ardent Capital, a venture capital firm which built or invested in 24 companies across seven countries. In his earlier career he was an executive, cofounder or board member of several companies that have listed on international exchanges, including Nasdaq (USA), ASX (Australia) and NZX (New Zealand). Adrian earned his MD with honors from Monash University Australia, and focused on medical informatics at the start of his career.
Founding members Paul Srivorakul, John Srivorakul, Tom Srivorakul and Piers Bennett have built companies on a regional scale and have three exits under their belt: NewMedia Edge was sold to STW Group, LivingSocial bought Ensogo and Admax was. That's irrespective of cultural and personal ties that Ardent's founders maintain there — the Srivorakul brothers are American-Thai. The core team of aCommerce is battle-tested, having built three other startups from the ground up and successfully exiting all three, their last one being Ensogo, the daily deals site that got acquired by LivingSocial.
Ardent's founding team consists of Paul Srivorakul, John Srivorakul, Tom Srivorakul and Piers Bennett, who have successfully founded, scaled and exited three businesses in the region: NewMedia Edge to STW Group, Ensogo to LivingSocial and Admax to Komli. Adrian Vanzyl joined the team as co-founder and CEO to found Ardent Capital in January 2012. aCommerce is a product of the experience of Paul, his brother Tom Srivorakul and teammates Piers Bennett, Peter Kopitz and the rest of the aCommerce team.
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