Nuvama leads $53m round for India's Course5
India’s Nuvama Asset Management, formerly Edelweiss Wealth Management, has led a USD 53m investment in local data analytics start-up Course5 Intelligence.
It comes less than three weeks after a USD 28m investment from 360 One Asset Management, formerly IIFL Wealth & Asset Management. The two investments are part of an ongoing round that will be used primarily for expansion via M&A.
Edelweiss Financial Services’ wealth management business changed its name to Nuvama after demerging from its parent last April. PAG, which acquired a 51% stake in Edelweiss Wealth Management in 2020 for USD 300m, retains a majority stake in the business.
360 One, which recently acquired control of longstanding seed investor Mumbai Angels, said it invested via its Tech Fund. Bain Capital has about 25% of 360 One, acquired last April for INR 33.8bn (USD 410m).
Carnelian Asset Advisors, a boutique asset manager focused on emerging and high-growth sectors in India, also participated in the latest investment. Carnelian manages about USD 300m across various strategies.
Course5 aims to help companies drive digital transformations through artificial intelligence (AI) products that provide data-driven insights and services around intellectual property (IP), customer engagement, marketing, and supply chain optimisation.
It claims to combine a multi-disciplinary approach to data integration across structured and unstructured data sources to facilitate informed decision-making. Revenue is hoped to cross USD 100m in the coming fiscal year, after which there are plans to launch an IPO.
The M&A agenda spans the US, UK, and India, targeting synergistic assets, including deep tech and AI start-ups, with annual revenue in a range of USD 10m to USD 20m. Recent activity on this front includes the acquisition of US-based Incivus, an advertising technology company that uses generative AI.
"Increase in complexity, type and usage of data across the world and significant advancement in technologies including AI is driving adoption of data-driven intelligence through enterprises like never before across the globe,” Pranav Parikh, a managing partner at Nuvama Private Equity, said in a statement.
“We see this as a structural long-term trend, and strongly believe that Course5 is very well-placed to benefit from this wave of acceleration, given its marquee client base, industry domain expertise and its effective delivery model.”
Nuvama is currently deploying its third pre-IPO fund, which has reportedly raised INR 38bn against a target of INR 50bn date. The first fund in this series closed on INR 17.5bn in 2017, and its successor reached INR 22bn in 2019. The firm invested INR 2.5bn in architectural hardware manufacturer Ozone Overseas this week, according to local media.
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