06 February 2017, India:
Early-stage venture capital firm Stellaris Venture Partners has raised about $50 million as part of the first closing for its new $100 million Fund as per the report by ToI.
Ritesh Banglani said, “We have been able to harness our founder networks and been able to get some of the best entrepreneurs in the country to not only invest in the fund but also advise companies which we will back going forward.”
He added, “We have assembled a strong syndicate of Limited Partners for our first fund. Indian tech companies are set to create US$500 billion of value over the next decade, and our fund gives its investors the opportunity to participate in this value creation.”
“For the first cheque, we will go up to $3 million—but we will also do extensive reserve planning. The companies that do well for us, we may invest up to $15 million in those companies,” said Rahul Chowdhri.
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“Roughly, a quarter of the fund has come from individuals, and the remainder of the money has come from a combination of high-quality institutional investors and the large family offices,” said Stellaris partner Alok Goyal. Stellaris aims to cap the size of its maiden fund at $100 million and expects to raise the rest of the money by the year-end.
About 50 executives—including Taxiforsure co-founder Aprameya R., Indify founder Alok Mittal, Helion and Fireside Ventures founder Kanwaljit Singh and Neeraj Agarwal who heads the India operations of the Boston Consulting Group—have co-invested in the fund as per the report.
India’s startup ecosystem is witnessing rapid growth led by areas such as cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence and big data, as well as the widespread proliferation of smartphones. In this environment, Stellaris aims to back entrepreneurs building applications for global businesses, Indian SMBs and consumers in verticals such as financial services, retail, healthcare and education. Infosys has invested Rs. 31.6 crore in Stellaris from its $500-million fund for startups. The fund will invest in domestic early stage startups. Stellaris has offices in Bangalore and Delhi NCR.
