28 July 2017, India:
Bengaluru-based venture capital firm SAIF Partners has commenced a new fund of $350 million as part of its diverse investment strategy to back tech startups as well as brick-and-mortar companies as per the report by ET.
As we reported in May, The new fund will make SAIF Partners one of the largest venture funds in India after Sequoia Capital, Accel India and Nexus Venture Partners all of which have over $1 billion in assets under management. It will look to focus on sectors such as healthcare, education, enterprise Saas and consumer brands, which it had so far not looked at closely.
According to MD Alok Goel, the sectors that the India-centric fund will focus on are Internet, healthcare, education, technology, financial services, enterprise SaaS, retail and consumer brands.
Goel added, “Earlier, in consumer internet, there were X of Y models, where there was empty space and it was more about grabbing that land. Now we are looking at newer opportunities which are not being done somewhere else. However, the pace will be slower in terms of number of companies.”
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Deepak Gaur, MD said, “We will continue to do seed, series-A, growth stage and public-listed.Public (listed) will be around 20% of the fund. It is flexible. In our last fund, we were not very active in series-B, in terms of cheque sizes above $15 million. We are hopeful in this fund we will do much more. We will also become more active in the newer sectors where we have not been very active, such as enterprise, SaaS, education, healthcare and consumer brands.”
Funds are typically structured as 10-year entities, after which venture capital firms have to return the fund to the original investors, which comprise pension funds, endowment funds and other investment institutions in the US, Europe and Asia, The Mint reported.
SAIF is an exception, because of its unique investment strategy. It invests in public companies as well as non-Internet companies, two spaces that most of its rivals avoid. Public companies deliver returns far faster than start-ups, which increases the liquidity at the Delhi-based firm (Norwest Venture is the only other venture capital firm that invests in publicly listed stocks).
SAIF Partners is a venture and growth capital fund invested in helping Asia’s exceptional companies grow from concept to IPO. It has been investing in India since 2001. The firm specializes in private equity and venture capital across Asia with a focus on areas including IT-ITeS, industrials, financial services, Internet, consumer products and mobile, among others.(Source- Economic Times)
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