Iron Pillar, a venture growth investor that backs technology companies in India, has raised $129 million for the first-ever Series B/C stage fund focused on investing in global cloud software companies from India.
DealStreetAsia first reported about the development in February.
This fund is a part of the Iron Pillar Fund II series, per an announcement. Sources had earlier told DealStreetAsia that the firm is looking to raise $400 million for its second fund.
Iron Pillar, established in January 2016, provides growth capital across Series B, C, and D rounds to help Indian startups carve out their global expansion plans in the US, Middle-East, or Asia-Pacific region.
It counts global cloud software companies built from India such as Uniphore, Servify, CoreStack, Ushur, Jiffy, Sibros, and Pando among its portfolio companies.
Going forward, the fund will continue to focus on backing companies that are transforming the cloud ecosystem globally, with a strong emphasis on software as a service (SaaS) and cloud infrastructure across key investment themes such as cyber security and governance, DevOps tools, future of work, and education and automation.
In an interview with DealStreetAsia last year, Iron Pillar managing partner Anand Prasanna said that the firm sees a significant opportunity in startups built from India for the global markets.
“Half of the Indian tech ecosystem is building for the global market. That’s where the opportunity lies, given the sheer scope of the larger ecosystem. With uncertainty prevailing in the global market now, the tailwinds have increased for startups in India,” Prasanna had said.
According to a recent report by Iron Pillar, India is likely to have more than 250 unicorns by 2025 with several new success stories tipped to emerge in the fields of cloud computing, B2C, and B2B.
Iron Pillar closed its first fund in 2018 with a corpus of $90 million. It thereafter raised $45 million for a top-up fund. More recently, it made headlines when it raised $10 million (Rs 74 crore) for its second fund from Allana Group, an Indian exporter of processed food products and agro commodities, last year.