Three venture capital (VC) funds, which had pumped in around $75 million into Nevis Networks, a provider of security for the enterprise local area network (LAN), filed for bankruptcy last week. While the VC funds have filed for bankruptcy, one India-based founder, Ajit Shelat, is seeking to revive the company, having arranged $2- million funding. Mr Shelat, a Pune-based serial entrepreneur who was India general manager of Nevis Networks and now CEO of the Indian and US companies, said the name of the US company has been changed and Nevis’ sole secured creditor has transferred the assets to the new company. The new company, Aviram Networks, will continue with the Nevis name and brand in India. […]

The BK Modi Group is all set to plunge into financial services. It has entered into a joint venture with Singapore based 3 Degrees Asset Management to start a special situations offshore private equity fund. CNBC TV-18's Sajeet Manghat and Sandeep Srikant report. The BK Modi Group is definitely spicing things up, this time in the world of financial services. Spice Finance, the group's newly-launched finance arm, has entered into a joint venture with Singapore-based 3 Degrees Asset Management to start an offshore special situations private equity fund, with a USD 150 million kitty. […]

Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) will complete the process of raising funds for its India Infrastructure Fund (IIF) in a fortnight, said Vikram Pant, managing director, IDFC Project Equity, which manages the fund. IIF, which currently has a corpus of $925 million, is eyeing the $1 billion mark. “But even if we don't reach that figure, we will close the fund in two weeks,” said Pant. He said IIF is neck-deep in investments and doesn't want to focus on fund-raising now. Pant had earlier told DNA Money, “There is so much more value now in investing than in raising funds.” The equity-only fund's original target was $1.2 billion. Pant said IIF has committed nearly $270 million of the corpus. […]

IDFC Capital (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., the newly formed fund of private-equity funds unit of India's Infrastructure Development Finance Co, is raising a US$500 million Asia-focused fund, a person familiar with the situation said Thursday. The fund will be focused on mid-market, growth-focused private-equity funds in Asian emerging markets, particularly China and India, the person said. There will also be some allocation to other Asian emerging markets and Southeast Asia as well as an allocation to other emerging markets such as Sub-Saharan Africa. IDFC is expected to commit US$50 million to the fund, the person said. The fund's first closing is expected sometime later this year. […]

India Infrastructure Fund, or IIF, has invested $50 million (around Rs250 crore) in two companies floated by Nashik’s Ashoka Buildcon Ltd to build two stretches of road connecting two cities of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, according to M.K. Sinha, president and chief executive officer of IDFC Project Equity Co. Ltd, which manages the fund. The fund has taken a 49% stake in these two entities, both structured as so-called special purpose vehicles, or SPV, which will build two stretches of toll roads totalling 162km between Nagpur in Maharashtra and Raipur in Chhattisgarh. SPVs are limited to the financing of specific assets. This is the third investment from IIF, sponsored by IDFC, Citigroup Inc. and India Infrastructure Finance Co. Ltd (IIFCL). The first investment was for $70 million across four road projects, which acted as seed assets for the fund, and the second was a $70 million investment in Essar Power Ltd in March. […]