MyRepublic Secures $51M Investment From Private Equity Firm

MyRepublic has secured a S$70 million (US$51.6 million) investment from Singapore-based Makara Innovation Fund, pledging to use the money towards regional expansion and product development.

The Singapore broadband service provider said the move was further supported by IP ValueLab, which was a unit under the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and primary objective was to help local businesses compete globally and capitalise on their assets.

Makara Innovation Fund was established in April 2017 from a partnership between IPOS and local equity firm, Makara Capital, with the aim to invest in companies with strong IP. It launched with a S$1 billion (US$737.14 million) pool and championed as part of the Singapore government's push to establish the city-state as a global IP centre.

IPOS then said the fund would invest between S$30 million and S$150 million each into 10 to 15 companies with globally competitive technologies.

Elaborating on the investment, MyRepublic CEO Malcolm Rodrigues said: "We have been developing our proprietary cloud platform for the past five years, which has enabled us to deploy a single operational platform across countries."

Rodrigues said the investment would enable the company to further developer the platform and support its expansion plans across Southeast Asia. He added that MyRepublic would be working alongside Makara Innovation Fund to implement "recommended IP monetisation strategies".

The Singapore broadband services provider currently has operations in Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand.

MyRepublic lost its bid for Singapore's fourth telco license last December, after Australian telco TPG Telecom swooped in with a winning bid of S$105 million.

Rodrigues said in July that the company still was looking to offer mobile services via an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) model later this year and planned to list by end-2018.