SINGAPORE (Reuters), Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, a state investor in Singapore has created a new investment vehicle that initially targets local businesses valued at between $1 billion and $5 million. Singapore is looking to expand its investments into fast-growing firms.

65 Equity Partners, which has S$4.5 million ($6.1 billion worth) of funds under its management, will principally invest in established companies with regional or international aspirations. Both companies made this statement in a joint declaration on Wednesday.

Lee Theng Kiat (chairman of Temasek International), the investment and management arm owned by Temasek Holdings, stated that the platform would also allow for flexibility in deploying funds to opportunities outside the core areas of Temasek.

65 Equity Partners is an independent managed, fully-owned investment platform from Temasek Holdings. It will focus on deal sizes between $100m and $200m and then expand to other parts of Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States.

It will make investments in all industries including technology, logistics, manufacturing, and consumer services.

This new unit manages an S$1billion fund jointly with Singapore to help develop local companies and a S$1.5billion co-investment fund to assist with late-stage private financing of initial public offerings (OTC) on Singapore Exchange.

Temasek Holdings ranks among the top global investors. It is anchored in Asia, and is a significant investor in many companies such as Singapore Airlines (OTC), DBS Group(OTC) and Keppel Corp (OTC).

Temasek Holdings has venture capital funds for start-ups, and also invests in small to medium businesses.

($1 = 0.7417 Singapore dollars)