100x100 Raises $100M Fund II to Build 50 Climate Startups in SEA & India
TL;DR
100x100, the Singapore-based climate company builder spun out of the team behind Wavemaker Impact, has launched Fund II with a $100 million target, roughly 1.7x the size of its $60 million debut fund that hit its hard cap in 2023. Rather than writing checks into existing startups, the firm builds climate companies from scratch across Southeast Asia and India, targeting 50 new ventures in agriculture, energy, industry, materials and supply chains. With 27 companies already co-founded across eight countries and a portfolio survival rate the firm claims is nearly double the venture median, Fund II is one of the more differentiated climate vehicles to launch in Asia this year, and a useful test of whether the venture-studio model can scale capital efficiently in emerging markets.
Key Takeaways
A studio, not a check-writer. 100x100 does not fund founders so much as manufacture companies, identifying "white spaces" in high-emissions sectors and assembling teams around them. That model lets the firm take far larger equity stakes than a conventional seed fund and exert tighter operational control, which is the entire bet behind its claimed top-quartile Fund I performance.
The $60M to $100M step-up is measured, not euphoric. A 1.7x fund-size increase after a 2023 vintage is a confident but disciplined move in a climate market that has cooled sharply from its 2021 peak. The firm is scaling its venture-building machine rather than chasing a headline mega-fund, which suits the labor-intensive nature of company creation.
Geography is the differentiator. Southeast Asia and India hold a disproportionate share of global emissions while sitting at the center of manufacturing reshoring, AI infrastructure buildout and food-system redesign. Very few Western climate funds are operationally present in these markets, so 100x100 is fishing in a pond with little competition for the best operator-founders.
Early revenue traction is the headline proof point. Portfolio company Rize generated $11 million in revenue in 2025 on 550% year-over-year growth, and Helios, a Philippine residential-solar venture, has compounded above 40% month-over-month for a year. For a builder model, early revenue velocity matters more than paper markups.
Fund Overview
Fund Name: 100x100 Fund II
Fund Size: $100 million target (Fund I closed at a $60 million hard cap in 2023)
Stage: Venture building / company creation from inception (pre-seed equivalent, high-ownership)
Check Size: Not a traditional check model; the fund finances and builds approximately 50 companies in-house
Geography: Southeast Asia and India
Focus: Climate and decarbonization across agriculture/food, energy, industry, materials, buildings and supply chains
Key LPs (Fund I): U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), British International Investment (BII), Triple Jump, Qarlbo Energy, JG Digital Equity Ventures, Kajima Corporation and Beacon Ventures
Why This Fund Matters
The climate venture market has spent the last two years in a painful recalibration. The capital that flooded in around 2021 chased frontier hardware and long-duration deep tech, much of which is still years from commercial scale. The survivors of that cycle are funds with a clear answer to the hardest question in climate investing: how do you get a low-emissions technology from "ready" to "deployed at scale" inside a fund's life? 100x100's entire thesis is built around closing that readiness-to-deployment gap, and it does so by owning the deployment risk itself rather than outsourcing it to a founding team it merely backs.
The venture-studio model has a mixed reputation in Western markets, where the abundance of experienced founders and capital makes building from scratch look inefficient. In Southeast Asia and India the calculus is different. Operator talent capable of scaling a climate business is scarcer, capital markets are thinner, and the white spaces in high-emissions sectors, smallholder agriculture, distributed energy, industrial materials, are enormous and under-served by both local and global investors. A firm that can supply the missing operating infrastructure, not just money, has a structural edge that is hard to replicate from a coastal office in San Francisco or London.
There is also a macro tailwind the firm is explicit about. Reshoring of manufacturing, the AI-driven buildout of data-center and power infrastructure, and the redesign of regional food systems are all converging on exactly the geographies 100x100 operates in. Each of those shifts is emissions-intensive by default, which means the demand for cheaper, lower-carbon alternatives is being created in the same markets where the firm builds. The "green discount" framing, building ventures that win on cost or economics while cutting emissions, is the right one: in emerging markets, climate solutions that require a green premium do not scale, and ones that are simply cheaper do.
For the broader LP community, Fund II is a data point on whether development-finance and strategic capital, DFC, EDB, BII and corporates like Kajima, can be a durable base for climate building in Asia. That investor mix is a double-edged sword: it brings patient, mission-aligned capital and useful market access, but it can also impose impact-reporting and mandate constraints that pure financial LPs do not. How 100x100 balances those incentives in a larger fund will be instructive for every emerging-market climate manager raising behind it.
The Team
Fund II is led by six founding partners: Guillem Segarra, Marie Cheong, Paul Lam Wai, Quentin Vaquette, Steve Melhuish and Subhadeep Sanyal. The bench is deliberately weighted toward operators and company-builders rather than pure financiers, which is the right shape for a studio. Collectively the partners say they have built 58 companies, invested in 73 climate businesses and realized 19 exits, a track record that spans venture creation, climate technology and institutional investing across Asia.
Steve Melhuish is the most recognizable name to outside investors, having co-founded PropertyGuru, one of Southeast Asia's marquee internet exits, before turning to climate and venture investing. Marie Cheong and Quentin Vaquette, both founding partners and the public voices on this raise, carry the venture-building and Wavemaker Impact lineage that gives the firm its operating DNA. Subhadeep Sanyal brings agri-food and India depth, which matters given how central smallholder agriculture and food systems are to the portfolio. The breadth is a feature, but it also concentrates a lot of the firm's value in a small group of senior partners, a key-person dynamic worth watching as the platform scales.
Early Portfolio
Across Fund I, 100x100 has co-founded 27 companies in eight countries, and those businesses have collectively raised more than $28 million from 16 external investors, with the majority generating revenue within six months of launch. The standout is Rize, which cuts methane emissions in rice cultivation while serving smallholder farmers; it posted $11 million in 2025 revenue, grew 550% year over year, and reaches more than 40,000 farmers. Helios, a residential solar provider in the Philippines, has grown north of 40% month over month for the past twelve months. Both illustrate the firm's preference for businesses where the climate benefit and the unit economics point in the same direction.
What This Means for Founders
This is not a fund to pitch in the conventional sense. 100x100 is looking for experienced operators, people it describes as speaking with over 1,000 a year, to co-found companies inside its studio rather than founders seeking a check for an existing startup. If you are a senior operator in energy, agriculture, industrial materials or supply chains in Southeast Asia or India and you want to build with significant institutional backing, deep operating support, and a ready-made platform from day one, this is one of the most credible homes in the region. The trade-off is ownership: studio models take materially larger equity stakes than a traditional seed round, so founders are exchanging dilution for de-risked execution and infrastructure.
For founders already running independent climate startups, the more useful read is competitive. 100x100's portfolio companies are being built to win on cost in exactly the sectors where many regional climate startups operate, and they arrive with capital efficiency and operating support most bootstrapped teams cannot match. If you are raising in SEA or Indian climate tech, understanding what 100x100 is building, and where its white spaces are, is now part of basic market mapping.
Fund Momentum Take
We like this fund more than most climate vehicles raising right now, precisely because it refuses to pretend that capital alone solves deployment. The venture-studio model is hard, unglamorous and operationally heavy, which is exactly why it is defensible in markets where operator talent is the binding constraint. The early revenue velocity in the portfolio, real dollars, not just markups, is the most convincing signal that the model is working rather than simply being well-marketed.
The risks are real and worth naming. Studios concentrate execution risk in a small senior team, so the key-person exposure across six partners is material, and scaling a builder model from a $60 million fund to a $100 million one means roughly doubling the number of companies under construction without diluting quality, a genuine operational stretch. The exit environment is the other open question: liquidity for climate companies in Southeast Asia and India remains thin, and a portfolio of high-ownership, builder-created businesses needs either strategic acquirers or regional IPO depth that is still developing. The DFC/BII/EDB-heavy LP base is a strength for access and patience but could constrain flexibility if commercial and impact mandates diverge.
Our bet: 100x100 is one of the better-positioned climate managers in Asia, and Fund II's disciplined size signals a team scaling its craft rather than chasing AUM. If even a handful of its builds reach the $100 million-revenue ambition embedded in the firm's name, the returns will validate the studio model for emerging-market climate, and a wave of imitators will follow. The next two years of revenue compounding in companies like Rize will tell us whether this is a category-definer or a well-run niche.
Frequently Asked Questions
How big is 100x100 Fund II and how does it compare to Fund I?
Fund II carries a $100 million target. Fund I closed at a $60 million hard cap in 2023, so Fund II represents roughly a 1.7x step-up, a confident but measured increase given how much the broader climate market has cooled since 2021.
Is 100x100 a venture capital fund or a venture studio?
Both. It is structured as a fund but operates as a climate company builder, creating companies from inception rather than investing in existing startups. That lets it take much higher equity stakes and exert tighter operational control than a traditional VC.
Where and what does the fund invest in?
It builds companies in Southeast Asia and India across agriculture and food, energy, industry, materials, buildings and supply chains, with a focus on solutions that deliver a cost or economic advantage while cutting emissions, what the firm calls a "green discount."
Who backs the fund?
Fund I's investors included the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), British International Investment (BII), Triple Jump, Qarlbo Energy, JG Digital Equity Ventures, Kajima Corporation and Beacon Ventures, a base weighted toward development-finance and strategic capital.
What is the firm's relationship to Wavemaker Impact?
100x100 was established by members of the team behind Wavemaker Impact, the Southeast Asian climate venture-building platform, and carries that operating model and lineage into its independent, rebranded form.
Have a fund closing to announce? Submit your fund here.
Need help raising capital? Check out our Fundraising Advisory services.