Paragon Partners, a private equity firm co-founded by Siddharth Parekh to provide growth capital to mid-market companies in India, has marked the final close of its debut fund at $120 million (Rs 778.86 crore).
Limited partners (LPs) of Paragon Partners Growth Fund - I include a large sovereign wealth fund, a development financial institution, funds of funds, insurance companies, family offices and high-net-worth individuals, the firm said in a statement.
Paragon Partners was founded by Siddharth, the younger son of Housing Development Finance Corp chairman Deepak Parekh, in partnership with Sumeet Nindrajog in 2015. It marked the first close of the debut fund at $50 million last year.
The PE firm focuses on opportunities in sectors such as consumer discretionary, financial services, infrastructure services, manufacturing and industrials, and healthcare services.
“Our aim is to build a best-in-class investment firm to support the growth of our investee companies and generate superior returns for our limited partners in the process,” said Siddharth, co-founder and senior partner at Paragon.
Hong Kong-based merchant bank Ion Pacific Ltd acted as international adviser and exclusive placement agent to Paragon.
The private equity firm, which has a ticket size of $10-15 million per transaction, has already struck four deals aggregating around $47 million, it said.
Its latest bets include an investment worth Rs 75 crore in Cravatex Brands Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of publicly listed company Cravatex; and Rs 25 crore in InCred Finance, a technology-driven non-banking financial company.
Paragon Partners had made its debut investment in Mumbai-based privately held property construction firm Capacite Infraprojects Ltd. Its second investment was in engineering components maker Maini Precision.
Fundraising milestones of big PE firms
A number of big PE firms have announced their fundraising milestones in the past few years.
Earlier this year, homegrown PE firm ChrysCapital Management Co overshot its $600 million target for its seventh fund. In 2015, WestBridge Capital added $575 million to its evergreen fund, taking its committed capital to $1.4 billion.
Fairfax India Holding Corporation, which is part of India-born Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd, had raised $500 million in December 2016 to pip WestBrdige as the single-largest India-dedicated PE fund vehicle ever created with a corpus of $1.56 billion.
Last year, Renuka Ramnath-led Multiples Alternate Asset Management Pvt. Ltd wrapped up fundraising for its second fund.
IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd, one of the largest homegrown PE firms by assets under management, had completed the fundraising process for its new sector-agnostic growth fund almost two years after hitting the first close. The new fund, christened Tara India Fund IV, had garnered $60 million, a fraction of its predecessor Tara India Fund III, under which it had raised $225 million in 2008.
