Growth stage private equity investor Gaja Capital has invested Rs 65 crore ($10 million) in sports and fitness education venture Junior Sports and Services Pvt Ltd, the firm that operates under the brand SportzVillage to help the company expand operations across India.
“Education is our specialisation and we will help SV scale and transform using our capital and expertise,†Gopal Jain, co-founder and managing partner at Gaja Capital told VCCircle.
Founded in 2003, Bangalore-based SportzVillage is a sports management service provider. It offers sports marketing and events, sports infrastructure services, sports ticketing, etc.
The Economic Times that first reported the deal citing a company executive said Gaja Capital is investing in the company out of its third fund, Gaja Capital III, which has a corpus of $250 million.
SportzVillage operates three businesses—SportzConsult, a sports management company, catering largely to corporate institutions; and EduSports, which works with schools to provide physical education and sports programmes. The third—MeraSport—is a technology initiative to improve sports user experience by leveraging new media technologies of mobile, web and IPTV.
It previously raised funding from Seedfund in 2010. It has a presence in five cities across India. The company is promoted by the alumni of IIT/IIM/INSEAD with experience across organisations like Wipro, KPMG, HCL, Schlumberger, Philips and IBM. The firm is co-founded by Saumil Majumdar.
This is the second investment for Gaja Capital from its latest fund with the first one being in confectionery products maker Bakers Circle. Other firms backed by the PE firm include educational and training services company CL Educate, staffing firm TeamLease and EuroKids. Last month, TeamLease filed its draft red herring prospectus to go public which may give a part-exit to Gaja Capital.
