IndiaCo Ventures Ltd., (IVL), the country’s only listed financial services and venture capitalist firm, said it would launch a $250 million international private equity fund next year. The proposed fund will include an India-centric fund worth Rs 500 crore and will focus on sectors such as clean energy, telecom and healthcare.
“We intend to launch this fund by first quarter of next year. Both the domestic and international fund will come in two tranches over a period of time. We are currently talking to Indian investors and hedge fund institutions to raise the capital,” Dhananjay Bendre, Executive Director & COO, IVL told Express.
Though infrastructure is one of the growing sectors, IVL said it would focus on infrastructure ancillary companies rather than the sector as a whole. “We need a bigger fund size of nearly $1 billion or more to focus on infrastructure industry,” Dhananjay said.
IVL currently has a telecom initiative – IndiaCo Telecom Venture – through which it has invested in an Indian telecom company and is exploring further opportunities of investments.
Similarly, it has identified two companies in healthcare industry and is likely to pump in investments shortly. As part of the clean energy sector, the company is evaluating options of investing in solar and wind energy producing companies.
“The idea is to create aggregation vehicles in specific sectors and stay invested until the companies reach a particular level of growth,” said Shyam Iyer, Independent Director, IVL, whose average investment size would be between $1 million and $3 million.
According to IVL, the Indian market, notwithstanding the economic slump, is witnessing an upsurge in the number of startups and entrepreneurial initiatives.
Source: Express Buzz