Airavat Capital, a public equities investment firm, has floated a global technology fund domiciled in the Gift city (Gujarat International Finance Tec-City) to invest in technology companies around the world.
The Airavat Global Technology Fund R (AGTF R), a category III alternative investment fund, will raise capital from India’s high-net-worth individuals (HNIs) and institutional investors, while investing in top listed technology companies worldwide.
So far, the fund has received interest worth $40 million for the open-ended fund from a range of investors including family offices, venture capital investors and technology founders, among others.
Some of them include Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Hitesh Oberoi of Info Edge, Abhay Pandey and VT Bharadwaj of A91 Partners, Shray Chandra of CapitalMind, Jitendra Gupta of Jupiter Money, Pankaj Chaddah of Shyft and Sidu Ponnappa, former executive of Gojek.
“The fund will invest in areas such as tech-enabled consumer brands, financial services, information technology, including engineering and global software-as–a-service, similar to how it had previously done,” Rohit Bhat, managing partner of Airavat, told VCCircle.
“We are going to be investing in anything in the global market where we see an insight from our network,” he said. “We generally look for companies with strong unit economics, and long runways in the theme they are in.”
Airavat Capital is also launching a sister fund to raise capital from investors in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, which has already seen strong interest from family offices and HNIs in both the region. This fund, Airavat said, will reinforce Gift city's status as an emerging international investing hub.
Further, it recently shifted the domicile of its foreign portfolio investment vehicle to India, launching Airavat Capital India Fund (ACIF) in Gift city.
The jurisdiction and regulation in Gift city, which is best of breed from around the world, have made it easy and given us the confidence, said Suraj Subramaniam, managing partner, said.
“The tech fund is an evolution of India having developed that knowledge edge in technology,” Subramaniam said.
Airavat has close to $85 million in assets under management, which it seeks to cross $100 million over the next year.
