India's Trifecta closes venture debt fund at $140m

A first close of around $103 million was achieved in March last year. About 75% of the total corpus has been deployed to date. A third vintage is reportedly planned to launch later this year with a target of about $160 million.

“Almost a dozen life and general insurance companies, large family offices, and SIDBI [Small Industries Development Bank of India] have pumped in money in the second fund,” Trifecta co-founder Rahul Khanna said, according to The Economic Times. He added that the fund was likely to be fully deployed by year-end.

Khanna started his career in advertising and quickly moved into the technology sector, where he helped launch Hutchinson Telecom, one of India’s first mobile operators. This led to more engagement with tech start-ups in Silicon Valley in the early 2000s, including a stint with Yahoo. Trifecta was set up on the back of this experience in 2014.

Trifecta has invested about $275 million across 72 Indian companies to date, including co-living accommodation platform Zolo, direct-to-consumer beauty brand Pureplay, and smart retail services provider Servify. Earlier this year, the firm backed BharatPe, a financial services provider for mom-and-pop shops.

Trifecta is considered one of the early movers in India’s emerging venture debt space. SVB India Finance, now InnoVen Capital, is recognized as having introduced the strategy locally in 2008, with other players now including Alteria Capital and Intellegrow Finance. The idea is to offer LPs a lower risk profile while helping start-ups raise capital faster and with less ownership dilution.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Fundraising
• Credit/Special Situations
• Venture
• India
• Trifecta
• venture debt