Inventus announces final close of third fund at Rs 369 cr

Inventus Capital Partners has announced the final close of its third fund at Rs 369 crore. 

Inventus - III will be the venture capital firm’s first India-focused fund, led by general partners at Inventus Capital India Parag Dhol, Samir Kumar and Rutvik Doshi. The fund had announced its first close in July 2018 at Rs 200 crore.

Prior to raising the new fund, the US and India based VC firm was investing through its US-based funds which had $158 million under management. 

The SIDBI-managed Fund of Funds of Government of India is a significant limited partner (LP) in the fund, along with entrepreneurs like Deep Kalra, CEO of MakeMyTrip, K Ganesh of GrowthStory and Phanindra Sama, co-founder of redBus which was backed by Inventus. Close to 75% of the fund was raised from domestic sources. 

The Economic Times was the first to report the development.

In an email response to TechCircle,  Dhol said the firm is expected to complete making new investments from the fund over the next two-three years.  “As technology becomes pervasive in daily lives, the ability to leverage these LPs should be of significant benefit to our portfolio companies,” said Dhol.

With the current fund, the early-stage firm will continue to invest in seed and Series A rounds in technology-focused companies in the focus areas of internet, Software as a Service (SaaS), internet of things (IoT), machine learning applications and fintech.

“While largely agnostic, we would like to see additional investments in IoT/hardware from this fund. Of the five companies we have invested in, two fit that description,” said Dhol.

With the current fund, the firm has backed AI-focused enterprise sales productivity company Worxogo, local discovery app Little Black Book, interactive learning toy maker Play Shifu, blockchain and AI-focused supply chain company Koinearth and smart helmet accessory maker BluArmor. 

“We plan on investing in 15 to 16 companies from the fund. For every rupee we invest in a company, we reserve Rs 1.5 for future rounds, on an average, across the portfolio,” said Dhol. 

The India-focused fund comes at a time when early-stage funds like India Quotient and Endiya Partners have been raising new funds.

Sequoia Capital India with its Surge programme and Matrix Partners India have also stepped up participation in early-stage investments in the country.