Anthem Asia announced an initial close of $34.5 million for the Anthem Asia Myanmar SME Venture Fund, its debut fund focused on providing growth and expansion capital to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the frontier market of Myanmar.
The capital, which brings the fund within shot of its $50 million target, was raised from three institutional investors: The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group; the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF), a government-backed initiative managed by Triple Jump B.V. to improve funding for SMEs in developing markets; and the UK government-backed CDC Group.
The launch of the fund was first announced in February of this year with a seed investment of $7.5 million from the IFC to make investments of up to $3 million in Myanmar-based companies working in agribusiness, food and beverages, logistics, communications, business and financial services, education, healthcare, and communications.
“The Myanmar investment story is a digitally-driven, mobile-savvy version of the Asian investment story of the past three decades: the rise of the consumer; urbanisation; the rise of a middle class; the development of strong local brands. We see opportunities flowing from each of these,” said Anthem Co-Founder and Managing Director Josephine Price.
Under a 10-year, close-end structure, Anthem Asia, which is the first private equity firm focusing on Myanmar to be backed by the IFC and is led by Josephine Price and Genevieve Heng – two veterans in the private equity space in Asian emerging markets – will seek out asset-light businesses whose primary business model positions them to meet domestic demand. Using a “finance first with implied impact” approach, the fund will foster a combined outcome of full commercial returns while encouraging the pursuit of international environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards.
“Myanmar businesses struggle to grow as they lack access to funding—the capital market is in its infancy and bank finance is hard to come by. Our fund will provide outstanding entrepreneurs who share our vision on what makes for a sustainable business with the means to successfully scale up,” said Price.
Because of the lack of access to funding and resources, working with SMEs in Myanmar presents a different set of requirements from many standard private equity plays in order to see portfolio companies modernize and become competitive, according to Anthem Asia Co-Founder and Managing Director Genevieve Heng.
“We are active investors providing guidance as well as capital. We leverage on our experience of more than five years of investing in Myanmar, and from successfully investing in the past in Vietnam, India, China and emerging Asian markets,” noted Heng. “In Myanmar that means being hands-on, working with entrepreneurs to address a host of operational challenges and bottlenecks that come when a new market emerges, and leveraging our networks to achieve solutions.”
-Lynda Kiernan