India Quotient raises $30 Mn in the first close of third round, eyes another $30 Mn

India Quotient, an early stage VC firm, has closed the first round for its third fund at $30 million and plans to add another $30 million later this year.

The biggest chunk of fund came from Gulf-based billionaire of Indian origin Dr. BR Shetty, who invested $10 million in the VC firm. The remaining capital was raised from other HNIs including Flipkart Group chief executive Binny Bansal, RB Capital Singapore and institutions like Government of India’s fund of funds managed by SIDBI.

India Quotient plans to invest in start-ups operating in financial technology, education technology, social networking and other consumer businesses and brands.

The third fund will be the biggest by far and thus, the VC firm has also increased the cheque size. Earlier, it used to invest around Rs 1-2 crore in each startup. The larger investment will give enough ammunition to companies during scale and will save them from raising rounds on the trot.

Besides, the VC firm is also planning to participate with bigger cheques in the Series A and B rounds of its companies.

Founded in 2012 by Anand Lunia and Madhkar Sinha, the VC firm has so far invested in 40 companies, including Lendingkart, social network Sharechat and fashion brand Fab Alley.

The Mumbai-based firm invests primarily in consumer internet companies and brands and avoids software start-ups.

Besides India Quotient, Kae Capital, Blume Ventures, Orios Venture and others are some of the seed-stage VC firms in the country. The VC firms including Kae, Blume, Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners and Kalaari Capital are planning to raise new funds.

Interestingly, when VC firms are raising funds and planning to intensify their investments plan, Private equity (PE) investments has nose-dived.

Private equity (PE) investments fell to almost half (or 49 per cent exactly) during January-March compared to the period last year, according to a Venture Intelligence report.

Private equity firms pumped in only $3.7 billion across 133 deals during the first quarter of 2018 as compared to an investment of $7.3 billion in 200 companies a year ago.

Some of the other major investments which happened during the first three months of this year were in BigBasket, Swiggy, and Zomato.

The development was first reported by LiveMint.