Delhi-based private equity firm Avigo Capital Partners has elevated S. Harikrishnan as general partner (GP) of the firm. This comes as a fast-rise move after Harikrishnan had joined the firm’s Mumbai office as an investment director only in 2010. Harikrishnan would be the third partner in the firm, besides the founding partner Achal Ghai and the general partner Vivek Subramanian. However, Harikrishnan will continue to lead the investments for the fund in Mumbai.
Prior to joining Avigo in 2010, Harikrishnan was an investment director with Lazard Private Equity. Earlier, he was a vice-president with UTI Ventures where he had worked for more than eight years.
Avigo Capital manages a growth and a buyout SME fund in India and it is now managing approximately $365 million across three funds. Avigo is currently investing out of its third fund which had its final closing in June, 2010, at $240 million.
PE firms are reaffirming their faith in the existing teams and promoting them as that would help retain and incentivise the staff. For instance, Bessemer Venture Partners recently promoted Siddharth Nautiyal as a partner at its Mumbai office while BCP Advisors recently made some promotions internally.
Avigo has been active in the Indian private equity space since 2003. Of late, the firm has been particularly active in the ‘infrastructure enablers’ space with investments in firms like AMR Constructions, a Hyderabad-based mining and infrastructure company.
Some of the recent investments made into the portfolio companies of Avigo include fashion retailer Spykar, material handling company Tecpro Systems, packaging firm Bharat Box Factory and e-governance services firm Comat Technologies, among others.