India: FirstCry, Myntra early backer Chiratae marks first close of growth fund at $93m

Venture capital firm Chiratae Ventures on Tuesday said it has raised $93 million (Rs. 759 crore) for the first close of its ‘Growth Fund I’ to invest in growth-stage startups.

The firm said it plans to now close its greenshoe commitments by Dec 2022 and is targeting to invest across 15-20 startups raising Series C and beyond rounds in the consumertech, agritech, healthtech, fintech, SaaS, and deeptech sectors.

Chiratae Ventures told DealStreetAsia that the fund will be oversubscribed by 30-50%.

The fund counts domestic institutional investors such as Kris Gopalakrishnan Family Office, Choksi Family Office (promoters of Asian Paints), SBI, IIFL Wealth & Asset Management, and other family offices as well as existing global investors and key LPs, Chiratae said in a statement.

Chiratae Ventures has raised five early-stage funds and manages $1.1 billion in AUM. It has been an early backer of technology-led companies such as Bizongo, Curefit, EarlySalary, Firstcry, GoMechanic, Lenskart, Myntra, PolicyBazaar, Pyxis, Vayana, and Uniphore, amongs others.

It closed its fourth fund, oversubscribed at $337 million, in 2021.

Chiratae Venture’s fundraise comes amid rising interest of investors — both global and domestic — in India, including Sequoia, Accel, LightSpeed, and Matrix Partners.

Earlier this year, Sequoia India said it raised a whopping $2.85 billion across three funds to invest in the Indian and Southeast Asian markets, while Accel India mopped up $650 million and Elevation Capital (formerly Saif Partners) raised its largest-ever fund at $670 million.

Recently, Fireside Ventures, another early-stage venture fund investing in digital-first consumer brands, said it has closed its third fund at Rs 1,830 crore ( $225 million). This is double the size of its previous fund, which had a corpus of Rs 863 crore, and the first fund with a corpus of Rs 350 crore.

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