Rana Kapoor’s family office to bet on early-stage startups

By Bruhadeeswaran R

  • 05 May 2017
Rana Kapoor | Credit: Reuters

Yes Bank CEO and managing director Rana Kapoor’s daughters have identified several new businesses to invest in, mentor and incubate, a financial daily reported.

Sisters Radha, Raakhe and Roshini, through their family office, The Three Sisters: Institutional Office, are looking to pump in $150 million (Rs 965 crore) in education, tourism, family-entertainment and agri-logistics startups, The Economic Times said.

Radha Kapoor Khanna, the promoter of The Three Sisters, told the newspaper that the sisters want to actively partner good management teams at a concept stage to build businesses over the long-term.

So far, the family office has invested $100 million across various firms in the nine years of its existence. It has bought the master franchisee rights for Spanish dry cleaning chain Presto in India, has a tie-up with New York’s Parsons School of Design, and has backed the Businessworld magazine.

The Three Sisters had also launched a fund management company led by Raakhe Kapoor Tandon.

Shared working spaces platform Awfis Space Solutions Pvt Ltd, which had raised $20 million in a Series B round from Sequoia Capital India Advisors Pvt. Ltd last month, had been jointly incubated by its founder Amit Ramani and The Three Sisters. They had put in $11 million in the firm in 2015.

Unlike a traditional venture capital or private equity funds, family offices have a flexible structure both in terms of investment stage and structure, besides the exit horizon.

In the past two to three years, several entrepreneurs and business families have floated their own family offices, which includes Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran and Wipro chairman Azim Premji’s PremjiInvest.

Patni Computers co-founder Ashok Patni’s sons, Amit and Arihant, and Trivitron’s GSK Velu have also floated their family offices.

The ET report said that The Three Sisters employs 75 people. It combines investment and operating expertise to incubate new ideas and roll out business ventures. It is also allocating $5 million to promote entrepreneurship in the education sector through a startup incubator.