India Quotient eyes larger corpus for new fund, appoints general partner

Early-stage venture capital firm India Quotient said on Thursday that it has launched its fourth fund that seeks to raise $80 million (about Rs 582 crore), higher than the $60 million (about Rs 436 crore) it had raised in its previous outing.

The new fund will aim to invest in 35-40 startups in sectors such as software-as-a-service (SaaS), social media, direct-to-consumer (D2C), fintech and edtech, India Quotient said in a statement.

It did not give details on its potential limited partners (LPs) for the new fund and timeline on the first and final close of the fund.

The statement added that India Quotient has elevated Gagan Goyal from partner to general partner. The IIT Bombay graduate had joined the venture capital firm in 2017.

India Quotient had marked the final close of its third fund in November 2019.

The new LPs in the third fund included a large Chinese fund, prominent Chinese entrepreneurs, large family offices and B.R. Shetty, an Indian businessman with interests in the Gulf. Existing LPs such as MakeMyTrip’s Deep Kalra, Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal had also invested in the fund.

The venture capital firm had raised $5 million (about Rs 36 crore) for its first fund in 2012 and $18 million (about Rs 130 crore) for its second fund in 2015.

India Quotient was founded by Anand Lunia and Madhukar Sinha. Lunia was chief financial officer of venture capital firm Seedfund, while Sinha was a senior investment manager at impact investor Aavishkaar. Later, Prerna Bhutani and Goyal, both entrepreneurs, joined as partners at India Quotient.

Last year, Lunia told Moneycontrol that Bhutani is taking a break from active investing to explore entrepreneurial opportunities, but will continue to spend time as a venture partner.

India Quotient has invested in close to 70 startups, including LendingKart and ShareChat. Nearly 80% of its startups have gone on to raise funds for follow-on rounds from global investors, it said.

VC fundraising

This year has started with venture capital firms announcing fundraising milestones or floating new funds.

In January, South Korean financial services firm Mirae Asset, which has invested in Indian startups such as Ola, Zomato and BigBasket, launched an India-focused early-stage fund.

Also early last month, Endiya Partners marked the final close of its new fund, while Z3Partners marked the first close of its debut fund.

Later last month, Fireside Ventures hit the final close of its second consumer-focused venture fund.

In 2020, marquee investors such as Sequoia, Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF Partners) and Lightspeed India Partners marked the final close of new funds.

Smaller homegrown venture capital firms such as Blume Ventures and Equanimity Investments also marked the final close of their funds, while Unicorn India Ventures and Inflexor Ventures marked the first close of their funds.