Shunwei Capital raises $1.21 Bn worth 6th fund, commits significant chunk for India

Good news for the early and growth stages Indian startups who are eyeing to score fundings from the likes of Shunwei Capital. The investment arm of Xiaomi has just closed $1.21 billion worth sixth fund.

A significant portion of the raised corpus would be deployed in local startups as India has emerged as a priority for the VC firm after home turf - China.

While Shunwei Capital used to cut smaller cheques in India till the end of the last year, it began leading growth capital this year with $100 million round in vernacular social network - ShareChat.

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Since 2016, the investment firm had invested in about 16 startups spanning across sectors including vernacular content and fintech among others. Its notable deals include KrazyBee, Pratilipi, Clip App, Cashify and MyUpchar amongst a dozen others.

Although Shunwei didn’t reveal the amount it’s going to deploy from the largest raised corpus, its co-founder Tuck Lye Koh confirms that the firm will continue to invest proactively in India.

According to Koh, Shunwei will keep investing in scalable businesses that have asset-light models.

Founded in 2011, Shunwei Capital manages $3 billion (including the latest fund)  from reputable global investors, comprising sovereign wealth funds, family offices, fund of funds, and university endowments.

So far in 2018, Chinese VCs have deployed $931 million across Indian startups. As per investment tracker firm Venture Intelligence, Shunwei has injected $228 million this year.

Several Indian VC firms including Lightspeed, Sequoia and others have raised new funds. Besides heavyweights (BAT) and Shunwei, Jack Ma backed Ganesh Ventures has plans to invest $250 million in Indian startups across sectors like TMT, consumer products, fintech and health-tech over the next 3-5 years.

The development was reported by ET.