Watch: Dhruv Kapoor on betting bigger on India with Sistema Asia’s upcoming new fund

Dhruv Kapoor caught India’s venture capital wave early, back in 2008, when he joined Helion Venture Partners, one of the country’s oldest homegrown venture capital firms. His eight-year stint at the firm saw the former McKinsey & Co executive invest in businesses across sectors including consumer internet and fintech at multiple stages. 

Kapoor signed on with Singapore-headquartered Sistema Asia Capital about four years ago as partner and leads the firm’s investments in ecommerce, travel and transport, fintech, media and content. 

The firm has been investing here from the $120 million Sistema Asia Fund, which backs mid-stage technology companies. It currently has a portfolio of about 10 companies including meat delivery platform Licious, SME lender Lendingkart and cloud kitchens platform Rebel Foods.

In a conversation with TechCircle on the sidelines of the recently concluded TechCircleLIVE summit, Kapoor spoke about Sistema’s upcoming second fund, which is expected to be launched with a $150 million corpus, and  going deeper into the fintech sector with supply chain financing, wealth management, neo-banking and blockchain applications. 

The firm also has the agritech, healthtech and edtech sectors on its radar. “Edtech is getting exciting and we will also focus on agritech and software plays in the construction sector,” Kapoor said.

The new fund will also see the firm write out larger cheques and lead more rounds in its future bets. “The first fund was heavily backed by the parent entity (Russian conglomerate Sistema PJSFC) and we benefited from the guidance of co-investors. With the second fund, we hope to have 50% backing from the parent and will reach out to limited partners (investors) across geographies,” said Kapoor.