Serial healthcare entrepreneur GSK Velu has invested $4.38 million (Rs 29 crore) in Gurgaon-based Leixir Resources, a services company which manages a small dental labs chain in North America through its group companies.
Velu participated in a $12 million funding round along with Atlanta-based Source Capital earlier this year, Leixir said in a statement.
Velu, founder and managing director at medical device maker Trivitron Healthcare Pvt Ltd, didn’t reply to an email query. Trivitron already has a joint venture in India with Apollo Hospitals for a dental clinic chain called Apollo White Dental.
The investment in Leixir is the first personal investment by Velu, who sold his stake in pathology chain Metropolis Healthcare last year with good returns. The coming months saw him investing from the two funds worth a total of $175 million that he launched early this year.
While one fund is a family office that will essentially manage his private investments with a corpus of $75 million (Rs 500 crore), the other is a formal venture capital fund christened Stakeboat Capital. The fund is awaiting capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India’s approval, though it is already pursuing investment opportunities.
The funds will invest in healthcare delivery, consumer and enterprise technology segments. Stakeboat Capital will target companies looking to raise Series B investments and have established business models and cash flows. The family office investments will be longer term and more strategic in nature.
Leixir had raised a Series A round of funding in 2014 from a Mumbai-based venture capital firm IvyCap Ventures.
Leixir, which was founded in 2011, acquires labs and consolidates them through a hub-and-spoke model. It has labs in Canada and the US, according to its website. The labs offer dental restorations, including crowns and bridges, implants, implant surgical guides, advanced ceramic systems and dentures. It also provides fixed prosthesis such as ceramic crowns, cast crowns and metal ceramics and removable prosthesis products.
Over the past few years a number of dental chains in India have attracted venture capital and private equity funding with investments worth $2-10 million. Other funded players in this business include Axiss Dental, MyDentist, Smile Merchants and Denty’s.
