Bangalore-based Neonatal Care & Research Institute (NCRI), which runs a woman and child specialty hospital chain under OVUM Hospitals brand, has raised Rs 33 crore (approximately $5 million) from IL&FS Investment Managers and Norwest Venture Partners.
The company, which currently has two centres, plans to use the money to expand to three more hospitals in and around Bengaluru in the next 18 months, The Economic Times reported citing CEO Adarsh Somashekar.
VCCircle had first reported in June last year that OVUM was in talks with Norwest and other investors for fund raising.
E-mail queries sent to the spokespersons of OVUM, Norwest and ILFS did not immediately elicit any response.
OVUM had earlier raised two rounds of funding from NationWide Primary Healthcare Services, a primary healthcare chain, which also has Norwest Venture Partners as one of its investors.
The core specialities of Ovum, which was founded in 2011 by four doctor entrepreneurs, include maternal health care, in vitro fertilisation (IVF), neonatal intensive care and general paediatrics.
The mother- and child-care space has seen a couple of fundraising activities in the recent past.
Early last month, Rhea Healthcare Pvt. Ltd, which runs a chain of mother- and child-care hospitals under the brand Motherhood, raised $33 million from TPG Growth.
The Motherhood deal was the second deal in seven months in the mother- and child-care space after private equity firm India Value Fund Advisors invested Rs 400 crore (about $60 million) for a significant minority stake in Kids Clinic India Pvt. Ltd, which operates Cloudnine Hospitals.
Acumen Fund-backed Lifespring Healthcare, Spring Healthcare Fund-backed Oyster and Pearl Hospital and Rainbow Hospitals are among other players in this space.
IL&FS Investment Managers invests across three asset classes, including real estate and infrastructure besides sector agnostic growth funds. It had made the first close of its new sector agnostic growth fund Tara India Fund IV at $40 million (then Rs 250 crore). It was targeting a final close of this fund by the end of 2015 which has now got pushed to the first half of this financial year.
Norwest Venture Partners, a multi-stage venture and growth equity investment firm that invests in India out of its global fund, in January said it raised $1.2 billion for its latest fund.
The private equity firm has been an active investor in India and counts Cholamandalam Finance, IndusInd Bank, Manthan, NSE, Quikr, Swiggy, Thyrocare and Yatra among its current portfolio firms.
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