3one4 Capital announces first close of new Rs 350 crore Opportunities fund

3one4 Capital, the technology-focused, early-stage investment firm, has announced the first close of its of Rs 350 crore Continuum-I, having received capital commitments of Rs 150 crore, the Bengaluru-based investor announced on Wednesday.

Continuum-I is a dedicated opportunities fund that will back select portfolio companies of 3one4 Capital, participating in their growth-stage funding rounds, particularly Series B-plus onwards. A typical investment ticket size will range between $3 million-$5 million, according to an official statement released by the firm.

Continuum-I has onboarded two new Limited Partners (LPs), with the existing LPs of its earlier funds also participating. Japanese conglomerate Sojitz Corporation, which has a focus on the artificial intelligence and Internet of Things segments, had announced last month that it had agreed to invest in Continuum-I

Additionally, the firm has also brought on board a prominent US-based endowment fund as an investor in its latest fund. In its statement, 3one4 Capital had stated that investment by the endowment fund, which manages assets of over $7 billion, was one its largest allocations in an Indian venture capital firm.

The investment firm, however, did not disclose the name of the endowment fund. The LPs will also coinvest along with the fund in rounds raised by the latter’s portfolio ventures. Post the final closure of the fund, 3one4 Capital will mange a combined corpus of over Rs 750 crore, it said.

Founded in 2015 by Stanford University alum Pranav Pai and Siddarth Pai, chartered accountant, both of whom are sons of former Infosys Chief Financial Officer and prolific angel investor, TV Mohandas Pai, the firm launched its first fund, with a corpus of Rs 100 crore, a year later.

It launched its second fund in 2017, with a corpus of Rs 250 crore. The investment firm has a focus on fin-tech, healthcare, education technology media and content development and enterprise intelligence and automation sectors, among others.

The firm, according to the official statement, has a portfolio of over 50 companies, and has participated in over 100 funding rounds. It counts peer-to-peer lender Faircent, fresh meat and seafood brand Licious and data intelligence platform Tracxn in its portfolio.

A few of India’s top venture capital funds have also raised opportunities or expansion funds in recent years. In December 2016, ET was the first to report that Mumbai-headquartered Lightbox had raised a $54 million expansion fund. Separately, Matrix Partners was also reported to have raised an interim fund, focused on harvesting past investments, according to VCCircle.