Cradle to secure another 11 partners

PETALING JAYA: Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, which announced its first two deals under its co-investment partnership with OSK Ventures International Bhd (OSKVI) yesterday, aims to secure another 11 such partnerships by year-end.
"We are targeting about 21 partners by end of the year. Now we have 10. In the next quarter, we expect probably about five to seven more," Cradle vice president of investment and relationship management Juliana Jan (pix) told reporters at the announcement of its first two deals with OSKVI yesterday.
Cradle and its 10 co-investment partners have raised a combined amount of RM56.7 million to date, which will be channeled towards supporting the development and regional expansion plans of Malaysian technology entrepreneurs with potential and scalable ideas.
Yesterday, Cradle and OSKVI announced that it had raised RM1 million each for education services provider Sync and recruitment portal MauKerja.my.
The funding will support Sync's School Communication Platform, a software for strategic and more efficient parent-teacher communication.
Sync founder Zharif Sharif said it already has 80 schools on board now and plans to use most of the RM1 million funding for sales and marketing efforts to boost revenue.
Meanwhile, MauKerja.my founder Ray Teng said the funds will go towards renewing its marketing efforts and hiring new talents to support growth.
He said it already has 500 paying employers on its recruitment portal and up to 60% of the funds will be invested in technology. He said the funds will also cover the initial cost of its regional expansion plan.
In all its co-investment agreements, Cradle will fund up to RM500,000 and its partners will invest the same amount in a one-to-one matching deal.
Juliana said the co-investment initiative is to prepare Cradle for the gradual reduction of public funds towards funding early stage businesses.
Cradle targets 70% of its allocated fund to be channeled towards funding equity co-investment deals by 2017, with the remaining 30% reserved for grant funding.
Cradle signed the co-investment agreement with OSKVI's wholly owned subsidiary OSK Technology Ventures Sdn Bhd in November last year.
OSKVI is one of the 10 co-investment partners that Cradle has. Cradle had earlier said that it is aiming for seven deals this year with these 10 partners. It expects to announce another five deals this year.
In its 10-year history, Cradle has funded almost 700 Malaysian technology start-ups through its CIP Catalyst product development grant and its CIP500 product commercialisation grant.