Venture capital firm Filter Capital announced the closure of the first round of Filter Capital India Fund I with a total corpus of Rs 800 crore. Former Warburg Pincus executives Nitin Nayar and Sumit Sinha, as reported by Moneycontrol, spearheaded this initiative.
The fund comprises capital from both domestic and international investors, with 60 percent of the capital sourced domestically and 40 percent from international players. Akash Prakash of Amansa Capital is the largest Limited Partner (LP) in the fund.
Other prominent investors, including HDFC Fund of Funds, SIDBI, SRI Fund, Oister Global, the DSP family office, and Harsh Jain, CEO of Dream11, have also subscribed to the fund.
Capillary Technologies, an enterprise loyalty SaaS provider; Chalo Mobility, a bus mobility platform; LoadShare Networks, an e-commerce logistics services firm; and THB, an Asia-focused healthcare enterprise SaaS firm, are the technology-led growth-stage startups in which the firm has invested over 30 percent of the fund.
The report added that the firm plans to invest about 60 percent of the fund in 4-6 deals, primarily in leading or co-leading Series B and C rounds, over the next three years.
The partners informed the platform that the check size could vary between Rs 60-100 crore. They also mentioned that the firm is targeting areas such as retail, consumer, NBFCs, and services while refraining from investing in loss-making tech firms.
“Our view has always been that with a Rs 700 – 1,000 crore corpus, we would be able to successfully execute the investment strategy of leading growth-stage rounds in technology-led businesses in India. We are pleased with this outcome, especially considering the challenging funding environment,” said Nayar – the former India head at Warburg Pincus.
“We typically enter at the Series B/C stage. By this time, there is enough data to arrive at a point of view on the long-term potential of the business, but the business itself has not yet been rerated,” Sumit Sinha, Co-founder and Managing Director, Filter Capital told FE Aspire.
