Malaysian Axiata Digital sells its Digital Ventures portfolio valued at US$140M
Axiata Digital Sdn. Bhd. (AD), the digital services arm of Axiata Group Berhad (Axiata), announced that it has agreed to sell its Digital Ventures portfolio at a valuation of USD 140 million.
It will sell its portfolio to Pegasus 7 Ventures Pte Ltd (Pegasus) managed by Gordian Capital, a Singapore-based investment fund.
The portfolio companies currently under management are StoreKing, BIMA, FreedomPop, 11street and etobee. Co-investors that include Allianz X, Kinnevik, Millicom, LetterOne, Intel Capital, Atomico, Mangrove Capital Partners, LeapFrog Investments, and Kejora Ventures.
“The partners in Pegasus 7 understand our vision, our markets and our portfolio companies which we’ve built to focus on our ecosystem of telco and digital assets. We strongly believe this handover will ensure the assets continue to thrive through access to our customer base, joint marketing, and other synergistic activities,” said Mohd Khairil Abdullah, CEO, Axiata Digital.
Under Gautam Saxena’s leadership, founder and CEO of Pegasus 7 Ventures, Pegasus said that it will drive the growth of the portfolio. Saxena is a senior investment banker and former Head of Asia Telecom and Media with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
“The addition of these assets to the Pegasus 7 portfolio is synergistic with our thematic focus and will serve as an enabler for our future growth path,” said Saxena.
Currently, the existing portfolio is largely focussed on companies that address the needs of underserved consumers and encompass services such as micro-insurance, online to offline (O2O)/rural commerce, e-commerce, last mile solutions for banks, and e-mobile virtual network operator (e-MVNO) segments.
Pegasus has stated that it plans to accelerate value creation by scaling these companies and enhancing their access to global financial, strategic, and operational partners.
In the meantime, Axiata Digital said that it will continue to focus on its three core verticals which include digital financial services (Boost), digital advertising (ada), and digital platform (Apigate).