Venture capital firm India Quotient has marked the first close of its third fund at $30 million (Rs 195 crore), which is much bigger than the combined value of all its previous funds.
The final close is expected within the next six to nine months at $60 million, Prerna Bhutani, a partner at India Quotient told VCCircle.
India Quotient had raised $5 million for its first fund in 2012 and $18 million for its second fund in 2015.
The new fund has seen contributions from several of its existing limited partners (LPs), including Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, Singapore-based RB Capital, Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and venture debt firm Anicut Capital founder Ashvin Chadha.
New investors, who have backed the third fund, include Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty, an Indian businessman with interests in the Gulf, besides a few high net-worth individuals. LPs are largely domestic, said Bhutani.
“So far our funds have been small so we have not been able to top up our good investments as much as we might have liked to,†said Bhutani. The new fund is expected to write bigger cheques of about $500,000 (Rs 3.25 crore), compared with the Rs 1-2 crore it did earlier. The firm is looking to participate in Series A and B rounds of companies it backs.
The new fund will continue to focus on consumer businesses, financial technology and social networking. It intends to invest more in consumer brands, thanks to the jump in its ticket size. It also expects to explore new models in health tech and logistics.
The VC firm is also looking to exit some of its portfolio companies from the first fund, from which it has already made four exits. “We have certain events in the horizon from the first fund, wherein we will be looking at secondary exits,†said Bhutani. “Fund II is too early… We are expecting some large rounds so we may do part exits that is going to be all opportunistic.â€
India Quotient was founded by Anand Lunia and Madhukar Sinha. Lunia is the former chief financial officer of VC firm Seedfund, while Sinha was a senior investment manager at impact investor Aavishkaar Fund. Later, Bhutani and Gagan Goyal, both entrepreneurs, joined as partners at India Quotient.
The VC firm’s investments include SME financing platform Lendingkart, job portal iimjobs.com, online lender focused on the two-wheeler market CreditMate, wealth management app WealthTrust, online retailer FabAlley, and home entertainment firm Creo.
VC milestones
India Quotient joins a string of VC firms that have announced fund raising milestones early this year.
In March, Fireside Ventures, an early-stage consumer-focused venture fund, had marked the final close of its debut fund at Rs 340 crore (about $52 million), surpassing the initial target of Rs 300 crore.
Early-stage fund Prime Venture Partners announced the close of its third fund at Rs 400 crore (about $60 million), while equity crowdfunding platform 1Crowd marked the first close its debut angel fund at Rs 23 crore ($3.5 million) last month.
In January, early-stage venture capital firm pi Ventures had marked the second close of its debut fund at $25 million (Rs 160 crore).
The same month also saw early-stage venture capital firm 3one4 Capital clocking the final close of its second fund.
