India's Prime closes third early-stage fund at $62m

The new vehicle, like Prime’s previous two funds, will focus on technology applications in the financial services, healthcare, education, logistics and business process outsourcing sectors. Prime plans to invest in around 15 start-ups with strong product and technology teams and an ability to rapidly iterate, that it can support in all areas of business and product strategy.

Prime was launched in 2011 as AngelPrime by serial entrepreneurs Sanjay Swamy, Shripati Acharya and Amit Somani, and closed its initial fund at $8 million the following year. Its subsequent fund, following its name change, closed in 2015 at $46 million. The firm invests in up to five start-ups annually and typically takes stakes of less than 20% in its investee companies.

Prime’s existing portfolio companies include online financing marketplace KredX and payroll services provider Niyo Solutions, and it was also an early backer of mobile marketing start-up ZipDial, which was acquired by Twitter in 2015. It primarily invests in companies targeting the Indian enterprise technology market, though it also backs entrepreneurs with regional and global ambitions.

“The quality of technology entrepreneurship in India is growing non-linearly, driven by the fact that several employees of the first wave of tech startups have the maturity and exposure to solving problems at scale and are now turning entrepreneurs themselves,” Somani said in a statement. “Combining this with our first-hand experience and our unique model of investing, we believe this makes for a perfect storm.”

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• South Asia
• Fundraising
• Venture
• India
• Technology
• TMT
• seed