Phystech Ventures, a fund with Russian roots, has taken part in a funding round of 1.5 million Singaporean dollars (approximately $1.1 million) for Teamie, a social mobile learning platform operating Asia Pacific. The round was led by ACP, a Singapore-based venture capital firm, with Spring Seeds Capital and an undisclosed individual investor also taking part in the round.
Neither the terms of the transaction nor the respective contributions of the investors have been disclosed.
Teamie presents itself as the first social mobile learning platform in the region. It helps organizations create mobile- and web-based “collaborative learning communities” where learners can share, ask and discuss online with their peers and teachers.
“Social platforms have become the de-facto mode of communication, and together with smartphones and cloud computing, they have changed how we live, work, play and learn. Our clients leverage the Teamie platform to complement and, in some cases, transform their teaching and learning practices,” the company claims.
A $1 billion market
With a staff of 30 split between Singapore and India, Teamie serves clients across eight countries. “Given our cloud-based delivery model we can service customers anywhere in the world — which is especially important as we work with large enterprises with a footprint across continents,” Shivanu Shukla, Teamie’s co-founder and CEO, told East-West Digital News.
“While our immediate focus is on Asia Pacific, we also have customers and users in Europe and our success so far clearly shows the potential to eventually develop a global offering,” he added.
According to Phystech Ventures analysts, the total addressable market in APAC for online learning platforms exceeds well over a $1 billion for academic institutions and enterprise segment.
Phystech Ventures was launched in 2013. Operating in Russia, the USA and South-East Asia, the fund focuses on IoT, connected platforms, cyber security, educational technologies, energy technologies, new materials, sensors, oil and gas, seeking technologies that are hard to replicate. Among Phystech Ventures’ backers are alumni of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT, or Phystech).
These include Sergey Belousov, a prominent tech businessman who turned his attention to Singapore as early as 2000. His company Parallels was founded there before becoming a global leader in cross-platform solutions.
“Since the very beginning, we have been considering Asia as a key innovation area where local tech companies can turn into multimillion dollar businesses,” commented Olga Maslikhova, Phystech Ventures Managing Partner, in an exchange with East-West Digital News.
Russian VCs in Singapore
“We also feel that there is still room for early-stage investors like us to get first access to great pipeline with reasonable investment terms. For us as institutional investor the best way to do business in Asia is to actually be here. From that prospective, Singapore is the perfect location to tap into the region’s most attractive market, such as educational technologies, cybersecurity and industrial IoT, which are maturing rapidly. Singapore has a well-established startup ecosystem, tons of government support in the form of grant financing, various benefits to tech companies, existing local and strong international VCs which may syndicate deals or get involved as follow-on investors. The rule of law and IP protection adds to the mix,” Maslikhova added.
A range of other Russian tech investors operate in Singapore. In 2014, Russian seed-stage fund SpinUp Partners invested in HaxAsia and JFDI. Among the Russian early movers in this region are also Ruvento – another investor in HaxAsia – and Dmitry Levit’s Digital Media Partners.
In 2015, DI Group, a Russian high tech group, launched a “venture fund-accelerator” in Tomsk, Siberia, in close partnership with HaxAsia.
Two Russian VC firms, Frontier Ventures and Life.Sreda, rencently moved their head offices to Singapore, presenting themselves now as international funds. Last year Life Sreda II launched a fintech accelerator, christened “InspirAsia,” in Singapore, while Frontier Ventures participated in a $8 million round for Singapore-based restaurant reservation service Chope.
