Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund (Aavishkaar), a Mumbai based venture fund focused on rural and semi-urban India, has picked up 21% stake in Pune based Saraplast Pvt Ltd. Saraplast is a sanitation solutions provider, which operates under the brand name ‘Shramik’ or ‘3S’. Saraplast will deploy the fund in expanding its presence across India and enhance operations in waste management services.
Vineet Rai, founder and CEO of Aavishkaar stated that it has invested in Saraplast considering its necessity for social and environmental development. “Coupled with strong business logic, a highly scalable model and a dynamic management team, we are building another early stage partnership with Saraplast that has far reaching positive consequences for the nation,” said Rai.
Aavishkaar has raised $35 million so far, spread over three funds including Aavishkaar Goodwell Fund. Aavishkaar Micro VC targets investments with a size ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 2 crore in areas including renewable energy, dairy, healthcare, agri-implements, besides other small and medium sectors.
From its initial funding in 2002 to Chennai based Servals Automation, a manufacturer of kerosene burner, Aavishkar has so far made 23 investments and 17 of them are in rural ventures.Some of its existing portfolio companies include Servals Automation (Chennai based rural technology firm which sells efficient kerosene burner and micro-irrigation device), Shri Kamadhenu Electronics (involved in technologies for dairy co-operatives), Tide Technocrats (Bangalore based rural energy solutions firm) and Craftsbridge (Pune based handicrafts firm)among others.