Continuing a series of high-profile appointments to its board, Jungle Ventures, the South-Asia focused early/mid-stage venture capital firm has now roped in David Gowley, formed Head of M&A at Yahoo as Managing Director for the firm. This follows from the appointment of Ratan Tata as an advisory member to Jungle’s board.
David brings to Jungle over 16 years of experience in investing and working with internet companies in both mature and emerging markets. He will be based in Singapore, where he will help lead Series A and B stage investments with a focus on the consumer internet sector.
Jungle is in the process of closing its second South Asia focused fund. The appointment of David will further build on Jungle’s vision to provide deep expertise to their portfolio companies in key areas such as strategy, marketing, product management and recruiting, particularly in the early stages, to support high growth ventures in consumer internet and enterprise technology.
In a prepared statement, Gowdey said,
I believe there is currently a tremendous opportunity to build a world-class venture capital platform and create something quite unique in the Asia Pacific region. Jungle, with its focus on being a truly value-added investor, has set themselves apart from other funds and I am excited to be joining the team.
David Gowdey spent twelve years at Yahoo! where he was the Head of International M&A. From Yahoo! he spun out a venture capital fund, Xplorer Capital, focused on internet investments across the emerging markets. In 2012, David then joined TPG Growth to focus on internet and technology investments outside of the U.S.
However, Gowdey will continue to represent TPG as a member of the board of directors of Propertyguru, one of the largest online real estate portal in SE Asia, which is currently facing stiff competition from the likes of Softbank-backed Housing, Newscorp-backed Proptiger and Google Capital-backed Common floor.
Earlier this month, Jungle appointed Mr. Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata group, as a Special Advisor. Some of the other high-profile advisors with the Jungle Ventures network include, Gokul Rajaram, Product Engineering Lead at Square, Lim Dershing, Founder of JobsCentral and Alon Sobol, Director of ISP/ Telco Relationships for Spotify.
