Bessemer Venture Partners has closed its new fund at $1.85 billion, the global venture capital firm has announced .
This is a tad higher than the $1.6 billion it had raised in its ninth outing in 2015.
US-headquartered Bessemer will continue to invest roughly 30% of the total corpus in international markets (India and Israel).
Vishal Gupta, who heads the company's India office, was citing as saying by The Economic Times that Bessemer had been going slow on in its investments in India this year as "valuations have been a challenge and finding large categories in the consumer internet space has not been very apparent."
He added, however, that there are a lot of opportunities in the fintech, health-tech and software segments.
An email sent to Bessemer seeking details about the new fund’s investment strategy did not elicit a response till the time of publishing this report.
Bessemer’s investments in India include food delivery firm Swiggy, online grocer BigBasket, home services marketplace UrbanClap, online drug delivery platform PharmEasy, home design startup Livspace and holiday packages firm TravelTriangle.
Bessemer, which has been investing in India since 2005 from its global fund, has not made any new bets in India so far. However, it has made follow-on investments in four firms in its local portfolio, according to VCCEdge, the data and research platform of News Corp VCCircle.
Last year it made 11 investments, of which doctor consultation startup DocsApp and fintech firms Innoviti and Perfios comprised its new bets.
Bessemer invests across sectors such as consumer, internet, enterprise technology, mobile, cyber security, cloud computing, software-as-a-service (SaaS) developer platforms & developer infrastructure, healthcare and IT.
Bessemer has made partial or full exits from companies including Snapdeal, Indian Energy Exchange, Matrimony.com and Shriram City Union Finance.
Unlike Bessemer, other global funds such as Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, Matrix Partners and Lightspeed have been investing in the country through their India-dedicated funds or have gone on to launch India-focussed vehicles over the years.
