Venture debt financing firm Stride Ventures has announced the final close of its second flagship fund to raise $200 million (around Rs 1,600 crore), exceeding its target corpus.
In April, VCCircle reported about the Stride Ventures India Fund II likely to surpass the target size earlier estimated at Rs 1,000 crore when floated in May 2021, with a greenshoe option to raise an additional Rs 875 crore.
The four-year old firm, which has provided debt finance to startups such as MyGlamm, Sugar Cosmetics and Mensa Brands, marked Fund II's first close at Rs 550 crore in August last year.
“Similar to the first fund, the second fund witnessed participation from leading banks, marquee family offices, corporate treasuries, sovereign funds, PE funds, insurance firms, and HNIs (high networth individuals) contributing to its success,” the company said in a statement without specifying the names of its Limited Partners (LPs)/investors in the fund.
The sector-agnostic fund has debt investments in companies across consumer, fintech, agritech, B2B (business-to-business) commerce, health-tech, B2B SaaS, electric mobility and energy solutions (EV) sectors.
The fund’s portfolio includes MyGlamm, Zepto, Yubi (CredAvenue), BluSmart, Uni, Upstox, WayCool, MensaBrands, MediBuddy, Wiz Freight, Perfios, Moneyview, VideoVerse, Chalo and Groyyo, among other new-age startups.
“Stride Ventures has already committed a large portion of the fund in industry leading startups and our goal is to continue being a preferred lender while developing innovative alternate financing solutions for founders,”said Ishpreet Singh Gandhi, Founder and Managing Partner of Stride Ventures.
The fund has an average ticket size of around $4-5 million (around Rs 30-40 crore), up from $2-3 million in the first fund.
Venture debt refers to a variety of debt financing products, specifically applicable to venture capital-backed companies. It is primarily a type of loan that is offered to early-stage, high-growth companies with venture capital backing.
Stride Ventures typically enters as debt investors at Series B and C stage, where startups have already raised at least $3-4 million.
The Gurugram-based firm has so far invested in more than 20 companies from its first fund taking its total bets in over 70 companies so far sanctioning over Rs 1600 crore.
The second fund will ramp up deployment in late-stage venture capital-backed startups in need of capital.
Its most recent bets are into e-commerce platform and two-wheeler vehicle financier OTO, B2B food and agritech platform WayCool and credit and payments-led fintech startup Uni.
Among one of the active lenders, Stride Ventures provides comprehensive solutions, beyond venture debt, to cater to the challenges faced by high-growth and inherently strong businesses, backed by leading venture capitals, the company says.
Venture debt firms in India have been increasing their focus on late-stage funding pointing to the ripening of the venture debt market. Other homegrown venture debt financing players such Trifecta Capital, Alteria Capital and InnoVen Capital are also pumping up their late state bets in India’s cash guzzling startups.
“The current economic environment has made growing businesses more amenable to debt transactions than ever before, giving India's venture lending industry a chance to grow and evolve,” said Apoorva Sharma, Partner, Stride Ventures.