Nitin Nayar, the managing director of private equity firm Warburg Pincus India, has resigned to set up his own technology fund, a report in a financial daily said.
Nayar, who is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, plans to raise a corpus of Rs 950 crore to Rs 1,270 crore ($150 million to $200 million) to make mid- and growth-stage investments in technology, with a focus on enterprise technology solutions, The Economic Times reported, citing three people in the know who wished to remain anonymous.
Nayar is still serving his notice period at Warburg Pincus, the report added.
Nayar and Warburg Pincus did not respond to requests for comments from VCCircle at the time of publishing this report.
Nayar is a director on the boards of coal-based thermal power plant ACB (India) Power Ltd., automobile classifieds portal CarTrade, and cloud-based customer engagement platform Capillary Technologies, information on the Warburg Pincus website showed.
Nayar, who joined the PE firm in 2003, has so far been evaluating opportunities in technology and media for Warburg Pincus. Prior to joining the PE firm, he was business development manager for Epoch Partners, a boutique US investment bank and worked in the technology investment banking group at Merrill Lynch in Palo Alto, his profile on the Warburg Pincus website shows.
The fundraising boom has encouraged several investors within private equity firms to explore their own funds. For instance, Dinesh Tiwari and Bala Naidu, the former managing directors of Multiples Equity and Baring Asia, quit in September 2016 and December 2016, respectively, to launch their own funds.
Meanwhile, other funds are also focussing on mid-stage growth investments in technology. Avendus Capital recently acquired Zodius Capital to raise a new tech fund aimed at growth-stage investments.
In an interaction with VCCircle last month, Gaja Capital founder Gopal Jain also said that the firm was reviewing its growth-stage investments in the technology sector .
