Northern Arc Investments marks the first close of its new fund at $23 Mn

Northern Arc Investment Managers, an alternative investment arm of non-banking financial company Northern Arc Capital, has marked the first close of its new fund - Northern Arc India Impact Fund.

While Northern has already received $23 million as a part of the first tranche, it is targeting to raise $100 million in total, which includes a greenshoe option of $50 million.

The debt fund's first-round saw participation from global investment firms including PG Impact Investments, Anthos Fund & Asset Management, and Calvert Impact Capital.

With the latest fund, Northern has marked its platform’s eighth investment vehicle.

Having a tenure of five years, the latest corpus would be deployed towards a number of debt instruments including senior and subordinated debentures, commercial papers, and other permissible market instruments.

Northern is also aiming to make 15-20 investments in the next two years. The average ticket sizes for these deals will range between $3 million and $5 million and would mainly focus on sectors such as microfinance, small business finance, vehicle, and agri-business finance.

Launched in 2014, Northern Arc Investments is one of the leading A+ rated NBFCs which provides a link between debt capital markets and high-quality institutions that lend to underserved households and businesses.

Having over Rs 1,600 crore under management, Northern has so far launched 7 debt funds.

In the past six-eight months, several VC firms focusing on seed and early-stage startups in India, have been raising new corpus. The list includes Accel India, Indian Angel Network (IAN), DSG Consumer Partners and 3one4 Capital, which have closed their targeted funds.

Recently, the co-founders of Parampara Capital had also launched their second fund, the 'Inflexor Technology Fund'.