CapBridge: The Private Syndicate Investment Platform

Jeffrey Fang, Chief Corporate Officer of CapBridge, sees great potential in helping institutional and accredited investors connect with mid-to-late stage growth companies in Asia. He explained that funding gaps are opportunities for HNW and ultra HNW investors, and how transparent processes and teamwork can optimise outcomes.

Fang was speaking at the Hubbis Independent Wealth Management Forum in Singapore on March 8, where he share more about CapBridge, a Singapore-based private institutional capital raising platform that connects institutional and accredited investors to mid-to-late stage growth companies. “Our platform provides a secure and effective environment where investors can confidentially access growth stage companies seeking finance,” he reported.

Tailored, efficient, focused

The CapBridge platform efficiently tailors specific deal types to each investor, showing them only the deals that meet their investment criteria. “Our platform also integrates useful tools that optimise time and resources,” he explained. “These tools include dynamic profiles, engagement tools, due diligence facilitation, deal flow management, secure data-room, and dashboards.”

CapBridge has a partnership with the Singapore Exchange (SGX) that allows the firm to facilitate and accelerate the IPO process for growth companies. The management team comes from multiple disciplines, including venture capital, investment banking, technology commercialisation and portfolio management.

“Our vision,” Fang elucidated, “is to build CapBridge into a world-class marketplace for investors and companies to achieve their growth objectives in an intelligent, secure and efficient manner.”

World class partners

CapBridge is supported by 1Exchange, as well as the SGX. Fang explained that 1Exchange is a spinoff from Clearbridge Accelerator, which is now listed on the exchange as Clearbridge Health.  

One of the key observations shared is that companies today can do more with less, and so can individuals. “What does this mean?” Fang asked rhetorically. “It means that we see companies being able to generate sustainable profits with a smaller team, with fewer resources.”

Another conclusion the firm has reached is that more companies are providing customers with specialised offerings.  “We see more and more companies emerging, empowered by technology and able to tailor some very specialised products and services. There are therefore many more investment opportunities today for the buy-side to examine.”

The third observation CapBridge has made is that specialised companies require specialised, precision investing.  

  Fang advocated a shift from a siloed investment approach to one built on the principle of sharing.  “There are lots of investment opportunities, lots of capital out there, lots of connections being made and lots of communication – but not so much knowledge. Real opportunities are overlooked by many investors because of a lack of knowledge and due diligence abilities, and that is where CapBridge comes in.”

Pre-IPO, with determined exit strategies

CapBridge works exclusively with companies in a growth phase. Fang explained, “This is a pre-IPO phase where companies who are seeking growth capital may be less keen on private equity or venture capital, but are not quite ready for a public listing.  So, we connect them to investors seeking such growth exposure – providing a capital bridge before an eventual listing. All too often, investors hesitate to commit because of the lack of exit clarity. Companies on our platform have a pre-determined exit pathway over a two to four-year horizon with listing as the end of that part of the process.” 

CapBridge has a partnership with the Singapore Exchange (SGX) that allows the platform to facilitate and accelerate the IPO process for growth companies.

Fang noted that the traditional fund-raising process is linear – a road show, meet plenty of potential investors, build the book and close. “With the CapBridge platform, enabled by technology, we make the entire process a lot more efficient and because there are pre-determined exits, because these companies actively seek growth capital in order to move forward, the investors have more confidence, greater assurance.”

Besides creating what Fang call a ‘marketplace’, CapBridge is a functional platform. “It is a safe data room with online transactional management. We help the companies as well, with onboarding, marketing, investor relations and so on.  Users can leverage our platform to incorporate enterprise-level security, accessibility, and scalability into their existing deal flow process. This is beyond simply connecting parties, so when a company comes on to our platform we actively seek out a lead investor, followed by co-investors. The larger institutions open the round and then other investors can follow on. This is the thesis we promote, and which based on results is already a proven formula.”

Fang concluded that the process empowers investors and the issuers. “It is efficient. You do not have to spend a lot of time sifting through material because we set parameters upfront, and the system matches you with deals that we think you will like. We have a seasoned team with deep buy-side and sell-side experience, we work to ensure that it is easier than you might have expected to invest efficiently and productively.”