Early stage venture capital firm YourNest on September 27 announced the launch of its second fund, YourNest India Fund II, with a corpus of Rs 300 crore.
The firm has also brought onboard Vivek Mansingh, who has previously served as President of Cisco’s Collaboration and Unified Communication Group and headed Dell’s India R&D unit, as its fourth General Partner.
“Early stage investing will continue to be our forte; with our team of seasoned advisors, four dedicated fund managers and a growing pool of mentors and active investors, we plan to build on the momentum created with the first fund,” said Sunil K Goyal, Founder and CEO of YourNest, in a statement.
YourNest says its India Fund II will allow it to invest in about 25-30 start-ups over the next few years, with a proposed 4-8 investments in a year. The firm says it won’t rely just on the capital it provides, but also on it ability to mentor start-ups in order to build great companies.
Mansingh, who was one out of 144 high net worth individuals to subscribe in the YourNest India Fund I, has on his own incubated five start-ups and currently serves as Chairman on the Board of AxisCades, an integrated engineering services that is now listed on the Indian Stock Exchange.
“I have been an angel investor and advisors to VCs for over 20 years. The reason I have decided to join YourNest is to realize my passion to engage with early stage start-ups and founders to co-create successful global businesses,” said Mansingh.
Started back in 2011 by Sunil K Goyal, Sanjay Pande and Girish Shivani, YourNext has so far invested in about 16 start-ups in sectors such as hi-tech, financial technology and start-ups that aid offline retail. The firm has stayed out of the e-commerce sector instead choosing to back upcoming technologies.
Source: The Business Standard
Image Courtesy: YourNest
