CDPQ to invest in India's Fundamentum

In addition to its commitment to the fund, CDPQ will also explore direct investment opportunities in Fundamentum’s portfolio companies. The firm, which is managed by Helion Venture Partners co-founder Sanjeev Aggarwal (pictured) and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, has set a target of $100 million for the fund, but the founders have said they could raise as much as $200 million depending on LP interest.

CDPQ is the first institutional investor announced for Fundamentum, which launched last year with initial investments of $50 million, including $30 million from Aggarwal and Nilekani and $20 million from a number of Indian entrepreneurs. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the investment arm of the World Bank, has indicated that it is also considering a commitment to the fund of undisclosed size.

Fundamentum will focus on start-ups at the Series B and C stages, aiming to help companies scale up to address larger markets and to provide liquidity opportunities for early-stage investors. The fund will invest $10-25 million at a time in two or three deals per year, targeting companies in the consumer technology, enterprise technology and business process outsourcing sectors that serve both the Indian and global markets.

“Both Fundamentum and CDPQ are bullish about the opportunity to build a host of large and enduring world-class organizations out of India, in the next decade and beyond,” said Nilekani in a statement. “I expect this long-term partnership to deliver tremendous value to the technology entrepreneurship ecosystem in the country.”

Along with Aggarwal, several other members of Helion’s senior management team have launched their own investment firms in recent years. Fireside Ventures, started by co-founder Kanwaljit Singh, closed its first fund last month at $52 million, while Rahul Chandra, another co-founder, launched a financial technology fund known as Unitary Helion last year. Chandra and Aggarwal continue to manage Helion’s existing portfolio, along with the remaining co-founder Ashish Gupta.

Another spin-out firm, Stellaris Venture Partners, was founded by former Helion partners Alok Goyal, Rahul Chowdhri, and Ritesh Banglani after they left the firm in 2015. The firm is targeting a $100 million corpus for its debut fund and announced a first close of $50 million last year.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Venture
• Fundraising
• Technology
• India
• Helion Ventures
• TMT
• Growth capital