Investors gearing up
Logistics properties just as interesting as digital start-ups.
Many logistics fields arouse investors’ growth fantasies. The spectrum ranges from logistics real estate in Vietnam, where GLP has launched a USD 1.1 billion fund, to the investment company Dutch Founders, which wants to put EUR 62 million into start-ups.
The real estate developer GLP initially entered the Vietnamese market in 2020, through a strategic joint venture with SLP Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City. Now it has launched a fund that it has called ‘GLP Vietnam Development Partners I’ (GLP VDP I), with an investment capacity of approximately USD 1.1 billion.
International investors of some stature are involved, including the Dutch pension fund APG Asset Management as well as the Canadian financial services provider Manulife.
The GLP VDP I fund will focus on developing logistics facilities in the greater Hanoi as well as Ho Chi Minh City areas, and will initially develop logistics properties covering a total area of almost 900,000 m² in six locations.
Craig A. Duffy, GLP’s managing director for fund management, believes that his firm’s experience in China and India positions it well for activities in Vietnam. Chih Cheung, an SLP founding partner, added that “Vietnam’s logistics industry is experiencing strong growth, due to an emerging middle class and e-commerce.”
Digitalisation of the markets
Opportunities are also available in more developed markets, however. The private equity firm Dutch Founders has launched its second fund, which aims to provide more than EUR 62 million to digital marketplaces and so-called ‘marketplace enablers’ in their start-up phase. The group, which was founded in 2019 by companies such as We Transfer, Treatwell, Just Eat, Hiber and Fon Q, has joined the trend of investing in niche markets.
This new pre-seed/seed fund sees potential in the fact that many supply chain and B2B business operations have remained largely offline so far. “Especially in the B2B segment many people still rely on legacy systems and analogue processes to handle their logistics or procurement,” according to Laurens Groenendijk, one of the founding partners of the fund.
The venture capital enterprise plans to invest around 70% of its funds in young European firms that digitally simplify and integrate parts of the value chain, for example through payments and logistics services.