VARDAN CEQUBE | JSW Ventures to raise second fund by 2018-end
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JSW Ventures to raise second fund by 2018-end

06 Dec JSW Ventures to raise second fund by 2018-end

Posted at 10:12h in Business by

Sajjan Jindal‎-led JSW Group’s venture capital arm, JSW Ventures, ‎is seeking to raise its second fund by the end of 2018, a financial daily reported.

Gaurav Sachdeva, the company’s managing partner, told Mint that the second fund will be substantially larger, but the focus will continue to remain on high-growth, technology-enabled companies. He, however, did not specify the target amount.

JSW Ventures was not immediately available for comment.

The venture capital firm’s first fund, which was launched in 2015 with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore ($15 million), was entirely seeded by the Jindal family. JSW group chairman Sajjan Jindal’s son Parth and Sachdeva oversees the fund’s activities.

The second fund will also be anchored by the Jindal family, but will also look to raise capital from external investors, including global firms, Sachdeva told the daily.

JSW Ventures backs companies in the consumer internet, mobile, software as a service (SaaS), fin-tech, health-tech, analytics, education, and IoT segments. Its first fund has so far deployed 40% across four investments.

Its latest investment was in LimeTray, an online platform that helps restaurants run their day-to-day operations.

It has also backed OSLabs Technology India Pvt. Ltd, which runs smartphone operating system Indus OS, and Manash Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd, which operates beauty products and services marketplace Purplle.com.

Corporate- and family-backed venture capital firms operating in India include Wipro founder Azim Premji’s PremjiInvest, Infosys co-founders NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures and NS Raghavan’s Nadathur Estates, besides former Tata Group chief Ratan Tata’s RNT Associates, the Patni family’s RAAY Global Investments, former UTV Group boss Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures, and The Three Sisters floated by the daughters of Yes Bank chief Rana Kapoor.

These firms compete with global and homegrown venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital, Accel, Matrix Partners, Nexus Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital.