American investment firm Alphatron Capital, which primarily makes limited partner-style bets on venture capital firms in India, has closed its maiden fund after surpassing its initial target by about 20%.
The firm has received $30 million (about Rs 249 crore) in commitments from its limited partners (LPs) for the fund, crossing its initial target of $25 million, it said in a statement.
Alphatron Capital, previously known as SMK Capital, was founded by Suresh Vaswani, Karan Negi, Sudhir Pai, and Vishwesh Pai. Vaswani is a Wipro veteran and a senior advisor at private equity firm Everstone. He joined Everstone in 2019 to boost its technology play. Sudhir Pai is a former Infosys executive while Negi previously founded Kriya Capital.
The firm primarily operates as a fund-of-funds, with an aim to invest about 70-80% of capital in about 10-15 VC firms in India, and the remaining to make direct co-investments in the portfolio companies of the funds.
So far, the firm has made 11 fund-of-funds and five direct investments. Its direct investments include Bharat Housing Network, which raised $15 million in Series A funding last November. Its LP portfolio includes Indian VC firms Blume Ventures, Chiratae Ventures, Epiq Capital, IvyCap Ventures, Creaegis, 3one4 Capital, Fireside Ventures, WaterBridge Ventures, Fundamentum, Speciale Invest, Arkam Ventures.
"The Indian economy, driven by technological advancements, presents tremendous growth opportunities for investors," said Vaswani, founding partner and chairman of Alphatron. “We are excited to serve as a gateway for US-based investors to participate in India's future over the next few decades.”
Alphatron says it provides its LPs access to India’s VC firms with a smaller ticket size. The firm says it follows a sector-agnostic and tech-led approach that focuses on sectors such as enterprise SaaS, fintech, healthtech, AI/ML, digital content, and direct-to-consumer (D2C).
“With our unique structure of investments into funds and co-investments, we revolve our thesis around strong fundamentals, product-led and tech-led startups, distinguished as category creators or category winners,” said Negi, chief executive of Alphatron.
