Global venture capital firm Sequoia Capital has topped up its fourth India-focused fund for the second time by another $125 million, according to media reports.
The additional funds for the fourth fund come even as the venture capital firm reportedly closed its fifth India-focused fund worth $920 million early last year.
The top-up will largely be used for follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies that received funds from its fourth fund, The Economic Times and The Times of India reported, citing unidentified persons.
An email query sent to Sequoia Capital did not elicit a response till the time of filing this report.
Sequoia Capital had raised $530 million in its fourth India-focused fund in 2014. It had topped the fourth fund with $210 million to take the total corpus to $740 million later in 2015, The Times of India previously reported.
Sequoia Capital India IV deployed funds across technology, consumer durables, food and beverages, e-commerce and healthcare sectors.
Notable investments from the venture firm's fourth fund include Softbank-backed mobile wallet Paytm's rival MobiKwik; online home furniture store Urban Ladder Home Decor Solutions Pvt. Ltd as well as pharmaceuticals firms Akumentis Healthcare and Curatio Healthcare.
The fourth fund also invested at a time when consumer internet companies were the flavour of the season for investors and valuations were high. Hence, its investments in hyperlocal ventures like TinyOwl and Roadrunnr did not do well with the two companies eventually getting merged.
In the past 10 years, Sequoia Capital has invested in over 130 firms at various stages, deploying more than $2 billion and has exited from over 55 firms. The unicorns in its Indian portfolio are Mu Sigma, Ola and Zomato.
The venture firm was not an early investor in any of these unicorns and, in fact, came in at a time when they were at a growth stage.
Sequoia also invests in other markets, especially Southeast Asia, from the India fund.
Globally, Sequoia Capital has been following early-stage investing since long. According to the US-based venture and angel investment research firm CB Insights, last year, Sequoia was an early stage investor in nine unicorns globally, including Airbnb, Evernote and Square.
Sequoia's move to raise additional funds for its older fund comes at a time when many venture firms in India have either closed their funds or are in the process of raising new funds.
Early in March, venture capital firm IDG Ventures India marked the final close of its third fund at $200 million. In January, early-stage venture capital firm Endiya Partners made the final close of its debut fund at Rs 175 crore (around $26 million) while Saama Capital made a final close of its third venture capital fund at $57 million (Rs 390 crore).
