Ascendo Ventures
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Ascendo is the rare Korean fund that actually gets cross-border expansion - their partners have been there and done that with Formation 8, SoftBank Ventures, and Toss. Aaron's Formation 8 pedigree and Jason's early bet on Toss show they can spot unicorns before they become unicorns. They've got two successful IPOs in their portfolio (ROKIT Healthcare and LIVSMED), which is impressive for a relatively young fund. But here's the catch - their current fund is focused on climate and environmental sectors, so they couldn't even follow-on in their own successful AI portfolio company Medipixel's Series B. That's either incredibly disciplined or incredibly frustrating, depending on your perspective.
- —Best for: Korean startups looking for true cross-border expansion expertise
- —Watch out for: Fund thesis constraints that might limit follow-on support
- —Known for: Partners who've backed billion-dollar companies before starting Ascendo
The firm prefers to invest in companies operating in the internet of things, artificial intelligence, robotics, environment, climate, digital healthcare, food technology, and blockchain sectors in Asia. It targets startups incorporating ESG values and impacting carbon emissions reductions. Ascendo strives to be a true lifecycle partner for game-changing tech companies.
Primarily invests in Seed round in South Korea based startups. Ascendo Ventures has made 5 investments in Seed stage with an average round size of $1.58M, 2 investments in Series A stage with an average round size of $7.76M and 2 investments in Series B stage with an average round size of $20.5M. Focus on IoT, AI, robotics, environment, climate, digital healthcare, food technology, and blockchain sectors in Asia.
Aaron is a founding member and Managing Partner at Ascendo Ventures. Prior to co-founding Ascendo, Aaron served as an Asia Investment Partner at Formation 8. During this time, he became an early and influential investor in successful Korean tech companies, including MyMusicTaste (acquired by Com2US) and Lunit (Kosdaq: 328130).
Jason is a Founding Member and Managing Partner at Ascendo Ventures, specializing in investments in the technology sectors. He was an early angel investor in VivaRepublica ("Toss"), joining in 2014 and serving on its Board of Directors until 2019. He was also an angel investor in Moloco, the adtech unicorn that is now backed by Tiger Global.
For over 2 years he has served as a head of "Kolmar Future Investment Group" in Kolmar Holdings Co., Ltd. Prior to that, he worked at Zenitas Investment for over 13 years as CEO. Leveraging his proven track record in developing and scaling new businesses at Kolmar, he is now focused on building a venture capital strategy to invest in and cultivate the next generation of leading cosmetics companies.
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