Singapore- and India-based private equity firm Quadria Capital has raised $304 million (Rs 1,944 crore) for healthcare investments in the South and Southeast Asian region marking the closure of its first sector focused fund, Quadria Capital Fund L.P.
This comes almost three years after the fundraising process was launched.
The firm had announced a first close of the fund at $107 million in September 2013 and one year ago added $100 million commitment from Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a development financial institution run by the US government.
The fund, which will be focused on making equity investments in mid-sized healthcare companies in South and Southeast Asia, had earlier received $25 million commitment from IFC. The fund is supported by Religare Global Asset Management (RGAM) as a cornerstone investor.
The new fund will invest across healthcare delivery, life-sciences, medical technology and associated healthcare services.
The fund has already invested in a couple of firms including Medica Synergie, which claims to be the largest hospital network in eastern India. It has also backed SOHO Global Health, an Indonesian pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution firm.
“We are looking to invest another $60 million across two investments in this financial year,” said Amit Varma, managing partner at Quadria Capital.
“There is rising demand in Asia for quality healthcare products and services, driven by an ageing population, affluence and changing disease patterns,” he said.
Quadria Capital’s investors include asset managers, development finance institutions, institutional investors, healthcare groups, and family offices from the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
BerchWood Partners LLC acted as the exclusive placement agent for the firm.
The firm will be investing one-third of the total corpus in India.
Another PE firm which has a South and Southeast Asia focus is Creador. It raised $330 million in its second fund last year.
Several other Indian PE funds have hit fundraising milestones in the past few months, including India Value Fund Advisors and Everstone. In the healthcare domain, Asian Healthcare Fund is raising a new fund.
Quadria Capital was founded by Amit Varma and Abrar Mir in 2012 to invest in healthcare delivery, life sciences, medical technology and associated healthcare services space.
Varma earlier played a key role in Milestone Religare, a 50:50 JV between financial services major Religare Enterprises and Mumbai-based Milestone Capital Advisors. In 2013, Quadria acquired this firm and brought into its fold an existing Rs 434 core India Build-Out Fund I, which is focused on healthcare and education sectors and has invested in companies like oncology chain HealthCare Global Enterprises, multispecialty hospital chain KIMS and test preparation firm IMS Learning, among others.
Positioned as a separate SME-focused sector agnostic PE investment platform, India Build-Out Fund is raising its second fund with target of Rs 1,000 crore (including a green-shoe option).