Life sciences-focused private equity fund manager InvAscent has raised Rs 875 crore ($143.2 million) to make a final close of its second fund India Life Sciences Fund II and is now looking to deploy Rs 250 crore or over a quarter of it in the next twelve months, a top company executive told VCCircle.
InvAscent is the investment advisor for India Life Sciences Fund II and its predecessor Fund I.
The firm had initially targeted Rs 750 crore but made the final close retaining the oversubscribed corpus. The development was first reported by The Economic Times.
The PE firm has raised money from limited partners across the US and Europe. Major LPs include a US-based asset manager with over $4 trillion under management, two US fund-of-funds, two European insurance companies, one European institutional investor and one European pension fund.
“The fund raising has not been easy but we set an example by returning 80 per cent of the draw down capital from first fund with only three exits,” says Hari Buggana, managing director at InvAscent.
The fund had exited Gland Pharma, Health Care Global and Sutures India from its first fund, which had a corpus of Rs 636 crore. The maiden fund had eight companies in its portfolio.
Last year it sold its cancer care network HealthCare Global Enterprises (HCG) at 2.2x returns to Temasek besides exiting medical consumables maker Sutures India Pvt Ltd with returns of 3.2x in 2012 after CX Partners acquired its stake.
In another big ticket deal it exited Gland Pharma where KKR said it is putting $200 million in total to invest afresh in Gland Pharma and buy Fund I’s stake.
The firm is focused on investments in pharmaceutical, healthcare services, medical technology. The firm typically invests between Rs 50 crore and Rs 100 crore across each deal.
It is currently evaluating one deal each in medical technology and healthcare services space.
Early this year, the firm invested Rs 40 crore ($6.7 million) in Hyderabad-based Sreyas Holistic Remedies Pvt. Ltd, which operates a network of dermatology clinics called Oliva.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
