Heritas Capital

We’re pleased to announce that Heritas has led the US$3.2m funding into Wholly Greens, a Singapore-based startup that operates a technology-driven food manufacturing and distribution business under the brand name Shake Salad. Wholly Greens has been focused on delivering #fresh, #healthy food at #affordable prices. Under the Shake Salad trademark, it sells a variety of ready-to-eat food such as salads, sandwiches, wraps and yogurt parfaits across its omni-channel distribution network comprising of traditional retail channels such as convenient stores, supermarkets and vending machines. "Heritas looks at holistic healthy #longevity solutions from curative to preventive care, and recognises that wider access to healthier and fresher diet options can impact the well-being of our communities especially those outside of central business districts. We are pleased that Wholly Greens through its tech-driven omni channel approaches can partner Heritas in creating and scaling new #foodtech solutions with more and more like-minded partners" says Janet Chia, Managing Director and Head of Private Equity at Heritas Capital.

“Despite the challenges ahead amidst expected big shifts in geopolitics and operating macro environment ahead, we remain optimistic about a brighter shared future that we care deeply about!” Our CEO and Executive Director Wai Chiew CHIK shared his experience on impact investing alongside fellow panelists George Aitken (KKR), Doug Coulter (LGT Capital Partners), Shivani Sahai (Quadria Capital), B. Paul Santos (Wavemaker Partners) and Jessica Wong (Infralogic), regarding the topic “Impact investing: From niche to mainstream” at the Asian Venture Capital Journal (AVCJ) Private Equity Forum 2024. The panel session brought together like-minded impact investors from diverse industries, geographies, transaction stages, and sizes to share their perspectives on the impact investing landscape and discuss effective strategies for managing portfolios from both revenue-generating and impact-generating perspectives. #privateequity #venturecapital #AVCJForum

"How can we remain optimistic through life, and how can we as a society remain optimistic?" President Tharman Shanmugaratnam this thoughtful question during his closing fireside chat with DBS Bank CEO Piyush Gupta, and broached the topic of how we as a society can remain active and contribute to the community so that we feel happy, purposeful and optimistic throughout our life. This week, we participated in The Impact Beyond Summit 2024 by DBS Foundation knowledge partner to Heritas' Asia Impact First Fund. The day started with an engaging welcome address by Karen Ngui, Head of DBS Foundation and an exciting keynote session by Dan Buettner, New York Times bestselling author and founder at Blue Zones. This was followed by a plenary session where our CEO and Executive Director Wai Chiew CHIK spoke alongside fellow panellists Mary Ann Tsao (Chairman and Founding Director, Tsao Foundation), Gillian Tee (Founder, Homage), Nathaniel Farouz 高天禮 (Managing Director, Senior Living at Keppel Ltd.) and moderated by Eugene Hong, MD (Executive Director, Head Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare, DBS Bank). This was an insightful session on the topic of "How can we leverage technology and innovation to improve healthspan", where the importance of creating an ecosystem network and enabling elders was emphasised, and innovation, technology and AI can be utilised (with the right context) to effectively integrate and support elders to age in place and age healthily in all sense - physically, mentally, financially etc. Having launched Asia Impact First Fund last year thanks to DBS being an anchor investor, we continue to applaud the vital role of DBS Foundation in championing leading social enterprises. Our heartiest congratulations to the DBS Foundation Honourees Bettr, S4S Technologies , Bettermilk, Voibook, Du Anyam, Waste4Change, SEI, ImpactHK, Haqdarshak, IMDA - you are all leaders in your fields driving and creating meaningful impact! #impactinvesting #impact #socialenterprises #DBSFoundation

Global healthtech start-ups are charging forth with innovation, showcasing their impact at another successful edition of SWITCH in Singapore! Our CEO & Executive Director Wai Chiew CHIK had the privilege of serving as a judge in the Health and Biomedical Finals at #SLINGSHOT2024, organized by Enterprise Singapore. Check out the image below of him hard at work alongside fellow judges Brian Kilen (Mayo Clinic Innovation Exchange), Buzz Palmer (MedTech Actuator), Chris Lee (VentureBlick), E Thel Loh (Olympus APAC), Fredrik Nyberg (MedTech Innovator), Navjeewan Khosla (Novo Holdings), Pauline Erica Tay (National Health Innovation Centre (NHIC)), Sheryl Tan (Haleon), Soh Leng Wan (Enterprise Singapore), Su Ling Yeo (A*STAR - Agency for Science, Technology and Research), and Tarun Chopra (L'Oréal), as they evaluated some of the most #innovative and #impactful startups shaping the future of #healthcare all around the world. Congratulations to all the finalists Acorai, Allegro Biotech, FerroptoCure Inc., Fertigo Medical Ltd., IntelVasc Inc, Qritive, SONIRE Therapeutics Inc., SpectraCann, STEMDEN, Vivo Surgical — you are all winners in pushing boundaries and transforming healthcare for greater impact! #healthtech #innovation #startup #SLINGSHOT2024

"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good, let us start creating impact through our investments and continuously improve via case studies and hands-on experience ... and work with like-minded local partners across Asia to scale both commercial success and impact, together!"   We were in Taipei this week where our CEO and Executive Director Wai Chiew CHIK shared Heritas Capital's impact investment journey and case study examples during his presentation and panel discussion alongside fellow panelists Johan Rozali-Wathooth (Bintang Capital Partners) and Fumi Sugeno (Japan Social Innovation and Investment Foundation (SIIF)), moderated by Richard Chang (IAFEI International Association of Financial Executives Institutes in Taiwan), on the topic of "Cross Border Impact Investing: Challenges and Opportunities in Asia" at the 2024 Taiwan Impact Investing Forum, sponsored by lead sponsors CTBC Bank, DBS Bank and Cathay Financial Holdings Co., Ltd. with international partners The Global Impact Investing Network and AVPN.   Drawing upon Heritas' 10-year experience and track record with >50 portfolio investments backed by our 7 funds across ~8 markets in Asia, Wai Chiew stressed the importance of supporting and helping our portfolio companies to create value and impact including scaling across geographies, taking into consideration the regulatory environment of each country given the diversity across Asia. There are great opportunities in cross-border growth and collaborations, and the key to success lies in ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned and in agreement on the business and impact objectives, and work towards the same goal.   Thank you to Taiwan Impact Investing Association 台灣影響力投資協會 and AVPN for the invitation to share our experience at the forum, and the warm welcome to Taiwan!   #impactinvesting #socialinvesting #socialinvestment

Our CEO & Executive Director Wai Chiew CHIK will be serving as a judge in the Health and Biomedical Finals at #SLINGSHOT2024, organized by Enterprise Singapore. As a keen supporter of Singapore's and Asia's health and biomedical venture ecosystem, Heritas is pleased to lend support to another edition of SLINGSHOT finalists!   SLINGSHOT will be held as part of Asia’s leading startup and innovation festival, Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH) 2024 and this year, it will be held at Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Singapore from 28 - 30 Oct 2024. Join us and connect with fellow startups, investors, and innovation teams from all over the world as they showcase the latest tech innovations from domains like #healthcare & #biomedical sciences, emerging #sustainable technologies and more.   Register for FREE to attend SWITCH 2024 here: https://lnkd.in/g-vhJjHJ   See you at the event! 

“Most M&As fail. The key reason based on our personal experience and observations: Culture eats strategy for breakfast!”   Our CEO and Executive Director Wai Chiew CHIK shared his learnings alongside fellow panelists Conrad Kwong Yue Tsang (Strategic Year Holdings Limited) and Bing Yuan (Rockets Capital 星航资本 ), moderated by Bruno Bensaid (Shanghaivest Ltd), regarding the topic “Not to be overlooked: Cross border M&A” at SuperReturn Asia 2024 this afternoon.   Drawing from Heritas’ experience as a GP successfully completing a recent M&A exit of majority-owned Timberland Medical Centre to IHH Healthcare as well as learnings as an LP in more than a dozen GPs, Wai Chiew stressed M&A has gained heightened importance throughout the investment management life cycle from deployment, portfolio value creation to exits due to multiple factors like liquidity, synergies, volatility, and geopolitics etc. The key to success, however, lies not just in strategic logic but also assessing and preparing for culture fit post M&A integration! Photo courtesy of Scarlett Chen 陳思佳 (with thanks!)

Our CEO and Executive Director Wai Chiew CHIK had the privilege to join insightful panelists Benjamin Soh (ESGpedia), Tom Berry (Nutrition Technologies), Guntur Mallarangeng (DELOS), and Cindy Z. (Gobi Partners) to discuss tech-enabled climate adaptation. Drawing on Heritas’ impact investment approach and case studies, Wai Chiew described the importance of #sustainable food production and explored the linkages with #climate adaption and just transition, with a holistic perspective of identifying bottlenecks for scaling both business and #impact through the design and integration of various tech solutions. Thank you to DealStreetAsia for having Heritas on the panel to address this critical and challenging topic at the ESG summit!

Join our CEO & Executive Director Wai Chiew CHIK and his fellow panelists Tom Berry (Nutrition Technologies), Benjamin Soh (STACS ESGpedia), Guntur Mallarangeng (DELOS) and Cindy Z. (Gobi GBA) at the DealStreetAsia Asia PE-VC Summit 2024 to discuss tech-driven climate adaptation! We're looking forward to two days of in-depth discussions, insights, and networking opportunities with industry leaders and partners. See you at the DealStreetAsia Summit!

We’re pleased to announce that Heritas' Asia Impact First Fund (AIFF) has led the US$4m Series A round into Kreedo Early Childhood Solutions, an India-based company that provides end-to-end solutions to transform the way early learning is delivered in schools, alongside UBS Optimus Foundation. The round also saw participation from other existing investors Gray Matters Capital, 1Crowd, The Chennai Angels, The Joka Angel Network and others. The funding will be used to enhance Kreedo’s product offerings and expand into new geographies in India. Kreedo was founded to change the quality of #education delivered in affordable private schools and preschools in early years and is solving this massive problem at scale by integrating play as the primary form of learning in their partner schools in the foundation years. Over the last two years, Kreedo has seen significant growth, doubling its revenue, expanding its reach from 700 to 1.7k schools / preschools and increased the number of children benefiting from its programs from 55k to more than 140k. With visible improvements in learning outcomes that provide significant differentiation for its partner schools, Kreedo is seeing strong demand for its product and impressive adoption of its affordable business model among affordable private schools in India. "We are pleased to make our first investment in India out of Heritas’ Asia Impact First Fund (AIFF) into Kreedo given its strong alignment with our objective of providing growth capital to #socialenterprises that addresses critical societal gaps. With the new funding, we look forward to supporting the founders alongside other like-minded impact investors in empowering affordable private schools and training teachers to implement activity-based learning and better classroom management for enhanced learning outcomes. We believe Kreedo’s track record and innovative growth plans will catalyze wider community efforts to enhance the future lives and livelihoods of generations of children across India”, said Wai Chiew CHIK, CEO and Executive Director, Heritas Capital.