Playbook Partners, a growth-stage focused investment firm set up by founding partner of Pivot ventures Vikas Choudhury, has marked the first close of its maiden fund launched earlier this year.
The alternative investment fund had received approval from market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India in December last year. It is targeting a corpus of $250 million (nearly Rs 2,100 crore), which includes a greenshoe option. VCCircle first reported about Choudhury setting up a fund in March.
Playbook Partners has marked the first close of the vehicle, raising about $130 million in commitments, Choudhury told VCCircle in an interaction on Monday.
The fund’s limited partners include large family offices and other investors in Europe, the US, Middle East, and India, with majority of the capital from international LPs.
Choudhury said global investors are keen on investing in India and do not want to miss out on the opportunity that the country’s private markets offer.
Choudhury, who was involved with Jio’s telecom, media, fintech and M&A operations during 2017-22, has backed multiple marquee startups including inMobi, Myntra, Fractal, Nazara, PolicyBazaar, Rapido among others.
“Post Covid, there's a maturity that the private markets have hit the scale that requires growth capital more than any other asset class,” said Choudhury.
Playbook Partners will back growth stage and tech-enabled companies that have reached a scale of Rs 100-200 crore of revenue and need Series B, C and D fundings.
“However, there is a white space (here) because there have been very few domestic institutions that have traditionally played in this space; it's mostly been global institutions that came in,” said Choudhury.
“(With the correction) over the last couple of years, there is this opportunity now for localised firms –like ours, with operational expertise, understanding of the market–to not just provide capital, but provide capability too,” he added.
Playbook Partners aims to build a portfolio of over 15 companies, giving cheques in the range of $10-20 million for a minority investment.
While sector-agnostic, the firm’s focus is on digital transformation themes, and will back startups that are leveraging distribution and disruption, driving consumption and innovation in aspirational India, it said.
Playbook is building on the ‘operator-driven’ model of an investment firm, with a team that includes entrepreneurs and professionals that have previously built and scaled businesses themselves. Its operating partners include Manish Choksi of Asian Paints, Aakash Chaudhry of Aakash Education and Milan Sheth, former executive of Automation Anywhere.
Its advisory board includes names such as Naveen Tewari of inMobi, Nitish Mittersain of Nazara Tech, Sushil Jiwarajka of Ericsson, Dileep Choksi, formerly with Deloitte, and Priti Rathi Gupta of Anand Rathi Group.
Choudhury did not give a timeline for the final close. “We have been lucky that we got to what is effectively one of the largest first closes announced in the country in our category. If we get to where our target is we’d be (one of the largest domestic funds) in this category.”
Besides Playbook, Elev8 Venture Partners, led by former Kae Capital executive Navin Honagudi, is raising a growth capital fund, aiming for a corpus of $200 million.
