Kotak hits $185m first close on India pre-IPO fund
India’s Kotak Investment Advisors has achieved a first close of INR13.9 billion ($185 million) for a pre-IPO fund.
The fund initially targeted a corpus of INR10 billion, which was oversubscribed within three months of launch. A greenshoe option was exercised for INR3.9 billion. LPs include several family offices, including Catamaran, the family office of Narayana Murthy, founder and chairman emeritus of Infosys.
The plan is to invest in high-quality companies across sectors with a strong moat of technology, robust unit economics, scalable business models and exit visibility. The focus will be on technology-oriented companies including technology-enabled companies in traditional industries.
“India’s tech ecosystem has emerged stronger displaying unmatched resilience. Many key sectors like e-commerce, software-as-a-service, fintech and edtech have recorded strong growth,” Srikanth Subramanian, CEO for private wealth and investment advisory at Kotak Investment Advisors, said in a statement. “The stock markets at present have very little exposure to such companies and it is worth considering diversification through this sector.”
The fund has made two investments to date worth a combined $44 million. In one of these, API Holdings, Kotak was the only external investor. Best known as the parent of pharmacy portal PharmEasy, API operates one of India’s largest consumer healthcare platforms with two million users a month and more than 20 million patients served since inception in 2015. It closed a $350 million round in April.
Kotak Investment Advisors is an alternate assets business within Kotak Mahindra Bank. The firm claims to have raised, managed, and advised more than $4.9 billion since its establishment in 2005. There are independent investment teams and funds for each asset class, including private equity, real estate, infrastructure, special situations, listed strategies, and investment advisory.
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