SAIF Partners eyes to raise $350 Mn India-focused fund

SAIF Partners, a venture capital firm focused on early stage technology startups, is raising a new fund of $350 million. With this new fund, SAIF Partners become one of the largest venture funds in India after Sequoia Capital, Accel India and Nexus Venture Partners.

The firm, which invests at multiple stages ranging from seed to public market transactions, has total assets under management of $2 billion. Earlier, the VC firm had closed its second India-focused investment fund at $350 million.

The new fund, SAIF Partners India VI Ltd, is slated to take its assets under management in India to over $1 billion.

SAIF Partners had put several successful bets including MakeMyTrip, Justdial, Paytm including several others. The stake sales in Makemytrip and Paytm make for the largest cash exits in the relatively short span of India’s venture capital industry.

The firm got whopping sixteen times return on its investment in OTA behemoth - MakeMyTrip.

Gurugram-based company is led by managing partner Ravi Adusumalli, including five managing directors Deepak Gaur, Mukul Arora, Vivek Mathur, Vishal Sood and Alok Goel. The firm has a portfolio of about 62 companies spanning across various sector.

The VC firm’s total $70 million investment in Paytm is currently estimated to be worth about $1.5 billion.

Over the past one year, several India focused VC firms had raised new corpus. Last year, Sequoia Capital India, the country’s largest venture capital firm, raised $920 million for its fifth successive India-focused fund. In December same year, Accel Partners India raised its fifth Indian-focused fund in tune of $450 million.

In February this year, Stellaris Venture Partners, an early-stage venture-capital firm founded by former executives of Helion Venture Partners, raised about $50 million as part of the first closing for its new $100 million fund.

Image credit: SAIF Partners