Private equity veteran Manish Kheterpal has floated a $15-million (about .`100 crore) early-stage fund, Water-Bridge Ventures, the latest instance of a new fund launch in an increasingly competitive space. The Sebi-registered, India-domiciled fund, which will focus on the pre-Series A to Series-A space, is looking to bet on startups utilising technology at their core, and spread across sectors, including consumer focused mobile apps in media and telecom, ed-tech, healthtech and fin-tech.
WaterBridge Ventures will primarily look to invest between Rs 75 lakh and Rs 3.5 crore in 12-15 ventures, and has a fund life cycle of 5-7 years, according to Kheterpal. “This is the best time to launch a new fund because the entrepreneurial activity has not come down as the ecosystem is maturing more now, and some froth is coming out,” Kheterpal told.
The fund has been largely backed by a number of family offices, high net-worth individuals and companies, making it one of the rare investment vehicles to have actively tapped domestic institutional investors. Kheterpal, however, declined to disclose the names of the fund’s backers.
WaterBridge Ventures, which has made its first close at $5 million, is the latest VC fund to be launched in 2016, has already seen the entry of numerous investment vehicles looking to place early-stage bets on India’s startup ventures. The growing competition in the seed to earlystage investment space comes at a time when growth-stage venture capital funds have turned increasingly cautious about writing large cheques, taking a step back from their frantic deal making pace over the last two years.
“It helps that VCs have tightened the tap for later stages of funding, as those help with entrepreneurs driving sharper business plans in earlier stages, valuations are more realistic and conversations are more sensible,” Kheterpal said.
Source: The Economic Times
