Prime Venture Partners, an early stage fund, said it had closed its third fund at ₹400 crore.
The Bengaluru-based firm would continue focusing on areas such as financial technology, healthcare, education and financial services.
‘Never more exciting’
“Digital India is exploding; there has never been a more exciting time to be an entrepreneur in India,” said Sanjay Swamy, co-founder and managing partner of Prime Venture Partners.
While most of Prime’s portfolio companies are focussed on the ‘Digital India’ opportunity, the firm said that it also has several firms that target markets such as the U.S. and West Asia.
“We’ve worked with companies from paper-napkin to early market validation,” said Shripati Acharya, co-founder and managing partner, Prime Venture Partners.
Prime, which was the first investor in ZipDial, a start-up that was acquired by Twitter in 2015, had raised its first fund of $8 million in 2012. The firm’s second fund, which received $46 million, was raised in 2015.
Deals decline
February 2018 recorded investments worth $1.4 billion across 63 deals, a sharp decline compared to the previous month in the absence of any mega deal (deal value greater than $300 million), according to accounting and professional services firm EY’s private equity monthly deal tracker. Exits also recorded a significant decline of more than 70% in terms of value and more than 50% in terms of volume, primarily on account of fewer open market exits.
“Deal activity clearly suggests that private equity [and] venture capital investors have taken a breather in February 2018 after a hectic January,” said Vivek Soni, partner and leader for private equity advisory, EY.
Given the recent announcements by the U.S. on trade tariffs, global volatility could continue well into March 2018. Mr. Soni said while private equity and venture capital investing is about the long-term, volatility does impact investor sentiment and consequently the timing of investments and exits. “In our view, the India investment thesis for PE [and] VC investors is stronger than ever before,” said Mr.Soni.
