Wavemaker Partners isn’t exactly the kind of fund that chases whatever’s trending.
While the venture capital market pours billions into robotics, industrial technology, defense, and of course artificial intelligence, this Singapore-based firm was already investing in deep tech long before it became fashionable, and with a philosophy that’s quite different from most. The firm backs early-stage technology startups focused on sustainability in the Asia-Pacific region, and has zero interest in popular technologies where a small check practically guarantees a big return. What they’re looking for are ideas that still need to be built, proven, and defended. 🚀
The core logic guiding every investment decision at Wavemaker is straightforward and comes from cofounder Paul Santos himself. According to him, anything of significant long-term value needs to be hard. It’s not that they go around chasing difficulty for difficulty’s sake, but it works as a signal that if you can solve that problem, the reward can be enormous. This premise, which might sound simple at first glance, carries enormous strategic weight once you understand the kind of technology this firm is willing to fund.
It was precisely this mindset that led Wavemaker to bet on Neocrete, a startup founded in New Zealand with a proposition that, at first glance, might seem too technical to grab headlines, but has everything it takes to change how the world builds its cities. The company developed an activator additive for concrete that can reduce the need for cement, which is the most emissions-intensive component in the mix. For anyone not familiar with the construction industry, it might seem like a minor detail. But when you look at the numbers behind the cement industry, the real size of this solution starts to come into sharp focus. 🌍
Cement is responsible for 8% of all CO2 emissions on the planet. That number puts cement production among the biggest climate villains in global industry. Many startups have raised massive amounts of capital trying to improve the environmental footprint of this material that’s so present in our everyday lives. Any solution that can cut that number in a way that’s affordable, scalable, and technically viable lands directly on the list of technologies that truly matter for global sustainability. And that’s exactly where Neocrete found its niche — not as a pretty idea on paper, but as a concrete answer to one of the most urgent challenges of our time.
The pre-Series A round of $3.5 million, which Wavemaker joined last month, might seem small by venture capital standards, where rounds of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars make headlines regularly. But that’s exactly where the most interesting part of this story lies. As Santos himself puts it, nobody would believe you can build deep technology with just a few million dollars, but they’re right on the threshold of proving it’s possible. It’s what’s called capital-efficient deep tech.
Why materials deep tech matters so much right now
There’s a fundamental difference between investing in software and investing in materials deep tech. While apps and digital platforms can scale quickly with few physical resources, technologies involving new materials, chemical processes, and structural engineering require longer development cycles, rigorous scientific validation, and extensive field testing before reaching the market. That scares off a good chunk of investors who prefer faster returns. But it also creates an extremely high barrier to entry for competitors, which turns these technologies into incredibly valuable assets over the long run. Wavemaker Partners understood that before most others did.
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Santos likes to contrast this approach with Silicon Valley’s, which tends to aim at ambitious and risky projects — like trying to invent entirely new types of cement. Neocrete went a different and smarter route: instead of reinventing the material, it focused on an ingredient that’s far less costly. What makes its technology truly novel is that the dry powder additive can be mixed with relatively cheap, low-performance materials like volcanic ash and fly ash — a byproduct of coal power plants — causing those materials to behave like cement.
The result is a strong concrete that requires up to 50% less cement. And here’s the real kicker: concrete manufacturers don’t need to drastically alter their production plants, making this option far cheaper than other green cement solutions that depend on expensive facilities or equipment, like on-site carbon capture systems. Reducing the amount of clinker in the final concrete without compromising strength is a genuine technical challenge, and that’s exactly the kind of challenge Neocrete tackles head-on with its solution.
What makes the bet even more strategic is the timing. The construction industry is under growing pressure from regulators, investors, and consumers to adopt more sustainable practices. The European Union, for example, implemented a carbon-based tax this year on cement, steel, and other carbon-intensive materials that are imported. Companies that can’t adapt their construction processes risk being shut out of major contracts in the coming years. A technology like Neocrete’s arrives at a moment when the demand for real solutions — not just sustainability promises — is higher than ever. 🏗️
Wavemaker’s investment model and what it says about the future
Wavemaker Partners was born 15 years ago from the hands of Paul Santos and entrepreneur and investor Eric Manlunas. Before moving to Singapore, where the government was investing heavily in the then-nascent local startup ecosystem, Santos had already logged plenty of miles as an entrepreneur and angel investor in the Philippines, his home country. The two were committed to backing entrepreneurs with a social or sustainability lens, and they went straight to the sectors where they knew they could spot overlooked or undervalued opportunities: deep tech and enterprise tech.
Santos often says that most people in the Asia-Pacific region don’t want to take on technology risk — they’d rather just do business model innovation. It’s precisely this willingness to embrace technical risk that sets Wavemaker apart from generalist funds that jump in and out of trends with a lot of speed and very little consistency.
A great example of this philosophy in the enterprise tech portfolio is Growsari, from the Philippines. The company helps more than one million sari-saris — the country’s neighborhood corner shops — buy inventory directly from manufacturers, while also supporting management functions like logistics and bill payments. The company, now ten years old, was a pioneer in offering this kind of service to small, informal businesses. The concept made total sense for Santos, who started his career in consumer products at Procter & Gamble. Wavemaker invested just one year after Growsari was founded.
While similar companies in larger markets like India and Indonesia raised a ton of money because investors saw the opportunity to scale — and ended up focusing too much on growth — Growsari focused on its margins. Now it’s expanding into those larger markets. As Santos sums it up, this is a business that rewards capital efficiency: there’s margin, as long as you know how to do it. 💡
Making fundraising fun
Wavemaker’s fundraising journey also says a lot about the firm. The first fund raised $6 million, most of it from friends and family. The second fund brought in ten times more capital and attracted heavyweight names like Temasek and the International Finance Corp., both of which came back for subsequent funds. The third, fourth, and fifth funds each surpassed the $100 million mark, and Temasek showed up in all of them.
Santos is honest about how tough that road has been. When you invest in the kind of stuff Wavemaker invests in — things that aren’t popular because they don’t look like what everyone else has already seen — you have to fight to prove you deserve the money. Still, he stays optimistic, because even in the moments when fundraising was tough, both the firm and its startups managed to raise capital.
The firm has actually fully exited its first fund, returned the money to investors, and is now working on exits from the second fund. The philosophy behind it is simple: if you have a valuable company, someone’s going to want to buy it. That’s why the focus is on getting companies to a certain scale, delivering a certain kind of value, with the confidence that buyers will show up.
Wavemaker Impact and the climate focus
The Wavemaker team also helped launch a climate-focused venture studio called Wavemaker Impact, which now manages its own fund under the name 100×100. Wavemaker Partners, meanwhile, chose to stay focused on a broader set of impact tech companies, with climate being one of the central themes in that strategy.
Developing green and net-zero-emission cement, for instance, is a key piece of the transition to a low-carbon economy, precisely because the material is everywhere and accounts for that 8% of CO2 emissions. On top of that, it’s in extremely high demand from construction and building companies. When you combine that landscape with increasing regulatory pressure, Neocrete’s growth potential starts to make a lot of sense within a five-to-ten-year horizon. It’s not a quick return, but it’s a return with solid fundamentals.
The investment in Neocrete came through Wavemaker’s fifth venture fund, alongside Icehouse Ventures and the Catalytic Capital for Climate and Health program from Temasek Trust. It’s worth noting that the firm had already invested in Neocrete back in 2023. This new round will allow the startup to hit a fundamental milestone — passing clients’ internal lab tests — while also expanding its pilot projects. The company has already secured a trial with a ready-mix concrete manufacturer in Brunei.
According to Santos, once that milestone is crossed, client orders start rolling in and the company is well-positioned to raise a large round and move into production contracts. It’s the logic of capital-efficient deep tech working in practice.
What Neocrete represents for sustainable construction
Neocrete’s proposition goes beyond simply selling a new product to builders. The startup is essentially offering construction companies a way to keep using concrete as their main material — which is practically irreplaceable in terms of cost, availability, and structural performance — while drastically reducing the environmental impact of every project. That’s much easier to adopt than radical material substitutions that require deep changes in processes, equipment, and training. Compatibility with what already exists in the market is one of the biggest competitive advantages of the technology the company has developed.
The company is working with Readymix Brunei, a local concrete manufacturer, on its first commercial application, which is part of the reconstruction of the kingdom of Brunei’s largest port. For projects at that scale — ports, bridges, commercial buildings, urban infrastructure — cutting cement use in half translates into tons of carbon that never get emitted. In terms of sustainability, it’s the kind of impact that public policies take decades to achieve through regulation, but that a commercially viable technology can deliver at scale much faster.
Santos himself acknowledges that the proposition sounds almost too good to be true: greener, better, and cheaper concrete than the traditional kind. And he makes a point of highlighting that Neocrete’s 15-person team in Auckland wasn’t on anyone’s radar compared to better-funded teams with more prestigious pedigrees at larger tech hubs. For him, the true spirit of venture is exactly this: taking a risk that other people aren’t willing to take.
Wavemaker Partners and Neocrete together represent an innovation model the world needs to see more often: patient capital, solid technology, and a real problem that affects billions of people. The climate challenge isn’t going to be solved with solar panels and electric cars alone. It’s going to require solutions for sectors that rarely show up in tech headlines — like construction — and it’s precisely in those less-illuminated corners that deep tech has the most room to make a difference. 🌱
