Early-stage investor 8i Ventures, which had backed fintech unicorn Slice, on Monday announced partial exit of its seed investment in payments infrastructure platform M2P Fintech at 36x multiple with an internal rate of returns (IRR) of 415% on the two-year old bet.
Early this month, VCCircle reported that 8i Ventures made the first partial exit from the maiden fund with 36x multiple from M2P Solutions Pvt Ltd, which owns M2P Fintech. The investor’s founding partner Vikram Chachra also told our publication that he hopes to mint at least two more unicorns in its portfolio over the next year with an aim to further his bets in the fintech space.
8i Ventures is a homegrown investment firm founded in 2018 by Chachra and Vishwanath V. In May 2019, it launched Fund I with a size of $15.5 million, which comprises $13 million as assets under management (AUM) and another $2.5 million co-invest AUM. It invested around Rs 10 crore per company starting with Rs 3-5 crore at the first-cheque stage.
Meanwhile, early this year, Chennai headquartered M2P Solutions raised $56 million at a $600 million valuation round led by New York-based private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners.
The fintech player counts Tiger Global Management, MUFG Innovation Partners and Better Capital as its other investors.
8i Ventures said in a statement that following its partial seed shares exit in M2P, it will continue to hold more than 75% of its original stake in the company via its Fund I and affiliates.
“M2P is a crown jewel in our portfolio. We took a small partial exit at a 36X multiple to demonstrate the robustness of our venture model. This small exit allows us to return a significant portion of our fund corpus within 3 years.
“We invested in M2P in the belief that it could eventually emerge as a foundational platform in India’s fintech economy. In reality, the company exceeded our 7-year revenue target in 2 years, while building an incredible 97% market share,” said Vikram Chachra, Founding Partner, 8i Ventures.
“8i was the first VC fund to believe in M2P’s vision of building a world class BaaS infrastructure platform for the world from India. They have backed us in every round from seed through Series B. They are more like co-founders than investors for us at M2P,” said Madhusudanan R, CEO and Co-Founder, M2P Fintech.
After fintech unicorn startup Slice, M2P is 8i Ventures’ highest valued firm. Its valuation has grown by 60x to $600 million since 8i Ventures led its seed round in January 2020, the statement added.
