Former fund managers at KKR & Co. and British International Investment Plc, Ajay Candade and Nikhil Balaraman, have joined hands to raise a $250-million venture fund to invest in technology-focused startups in India, Bloomberg reported.
Candade, who until recently led KKR’s growth tech business in India, and Balaraman, who was previously head of South Asia tech investment at BII, have named the fund Fractal Growth Partners (FGP). The fund has already attracted interest from some domestic and overseas investors.
FGP looks to scale up companies that have moved past the seed funding phase, the report said quoting a source. In terms of sectors, the fund will focus on software as a service (SaaS) and business to business (B2B) companies, with a targeted investment of $10-15 million in each.
The fund plans to stay invested for a period of about five years in each company, the report said.
India has one of the world’s fastest-growing tech industries, and Bengaluru emerged as the top fifth city on the global stage for venture capital investment in tech startups in 2022, behind Bay Area (San Francisco), New York, London and Greater Boston, as per Global Startup Genome Report released last year.
Some of the active investors in the SaaS and B2B space in India include Sequoia Capital, Acel Partners, Inflexor Ventures, Avataar Venture Partners, Bessemer Ventures, Blume Ventures, Chiratae Ventures, and Dallas Venture Capital, among others.
Recently, Dallas Venture Capital launched a Rs 350-crore DVC India Fund as well as partnered with technology startup incubator T-Hub. The focus of the fund will be startups in the enterprise technology or B2B SaaS space. DVC India Fund has already invested in five startups — Disprz, IntelleWings, VuNet, BluSapphire, and Hippo Video in the last 12-14 months.
Last October, SaaS-focused growth stage fund Avataar Venture Partners launched Fund II with a target size of up to $350 million. Avataar’s portfolio includes some of India’s top global SaaS companies such as media software unicorn Amagi, travel and hospitality startup RateGain, and SaaS unicorn for wellness industry Zenoti.