Saama closes fourth India VC fund at $100m
Saama Capital has closed its fourth India VC fund at the hard cap of $100 million, just over a year after closing its third vehicle at $57 million.
According to a regulatory filing, 59 LPs contributed to Saama Capital IV, compared to 36 for Saama Capital III. The new fund will continue Saama’s focus on early-stage investments with particular emphasis on the financial technology, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and non-technology consumer sectors. There will be around 15 investments in total, including follow-on rounds for existing portfolio companies.
The $100 million corpus represents Saama’s largest fund to date: the GP’s first fund closed at $54 million in 2007 and its second reached $80 million in 2013. Fund size discpline has always been a priority because Saama wants to remain true to its early-stage roots and have a fairly concentrated portfolio. However, the firm also needs capital for larger follow-on rounds, hence the incremental growth in the corpus with each vintage.
Saama was launched in 2006 as SVB India Capital Partners by Ash Lilani (pictured) and Suresh Shanmugham. The firm aims to take advantage of disruption in the Indian economy, as the country’s consumers become more aspirational and global-minded, and insist on better quality products and services.
Investments by Saama’s third fund include a $6 million commitment to specialty ingredients maker Veeba alongside Verlinvest and an $87 million Series C round for financial technology platform Lendingkart led by Fullerton Financial Holdings. The firm has also particpated in funding rounds for logistics company MoveInSync Technology Solutions and hotel operations platform Hotelogix.
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