Alteria Capital hits the road for $135 mn Fund II

Venture debt fund Alteria Capital on Monday said it is set to raise a Rs 1,000 crore ($135 million as per current exchange rates) second fund, with a green-shoe option of Rs 750 crore ($101 million). 

The company has received approval from SEBI for the new fund, which is expected to announce its first close in the first half of 2021, a statement said. 

Additionally, Ankit Agarwal and Punit Shah, former directors of InnoVen Capital, have been appointed as partners, it said. 

Similar to Fund I, the new fund will back startups in the early and growth stages, with cheque sizes of up to Rs 150 crore, and offer structured debt products for later stage companies. 

The debt fund is currently making investments from its Rs 962 crore ($130.4 million) Fund I and has backed companies such as cloud kitchen operator Rebel Foods, digital lending platform Lendingkart and hyperlocal logistics platform Dunzo. 

Limited partners (LPs) in the first fund, which announced its final close in July 2019, include Azim Premji Foundation, Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, SIDBI, and other domestic banks and financial institutions. 

“There is a growing appreciation for the venture debt asset class among Indian LPs who have seen strong performance despite Covid-19. This is a dislocated asset class with low correlation to listed stocks or bonds and hence provides a good hedge as part of their asset allocation,” Vinod Murali, partner at Alteria Capital, said in the statement.

Former executives at Temasek-backed InnoVen Capital, Murali and Ajay Hattangadi founded Alteria Capital in 2017. With Fund II, Alteria Capital will have over Rs 4,000 crore for deployment as venture debt and structured debt solutions by recycling funds. 

Earlier this year, venture debt fund Trifecta Capital also announced its plans to raise a third fund, with a corpus of $161 million, by 2021.