The fund, which was announced last year, has been raised from the company’s internal accruals and not from any strategic investors.
JSW Ventures will focus on early-stage start-ups operating in the education, healthcare, financial services, SaaS and enterprise software sectors.
Parth Jindal, scion of the JSW Group who was recently appointed Managing Director of JSW Cement, will spearhead the initiative at JSW Venture along with Gaurav Sachdeva, Managing Partner at the venture.
Jindal said, “Technology innovation is happening across sectors, from old-fashioned verticals such as real estate to research-driven work in machine learning and artificial intelligence. We think that the opportunity to innovate across sectors and businesses is immense and want to be a part of this transition.”
JSW Venture will not only provide capital, but will also help the investee companies become global firms.
The venture will look into the team, product-market fit, scalability and technology innovation while assessing companies. While JSW Venture has not disclosed the average ticket size it would be investing in the start-ups, it has been learnt from sources that the company’s sweet spot is in pre-Series A rounds, which is typically Rs. 3-10 crore depending on the size and last valuation.
According to sources, the company has been talking to a few start-ups and will soon announce two deals in July.
“Over the last one year, we have been actively working in the start-up ecosystem, evaluating companies that are building innovative products, services or technology. We will partner with passionate entrepreneurs driven by innovation and the need to build capital-efficient businesses,” Jindal added.
Of late, several conglomerates and banking institutions have started creating funds to invest in early-stage start-ups. Diversified financial services provider Edelweiss created a fund recently, while IIFL set up Rs. 10,000 crore. Meanwhile, State Bank of India recently announced that it will invest Rs. 200 crore.
Source: Business Line