GVFL eyes $1b fund for Japanese ventures in India

GVFL is looking to tap Japanese and Southeast Asian investors for the fund, which will provide growth capital to Japanese businesses that want to set up in the region. The average ticket size will be INR2-5 billion ($33-82 million).

Harish Pattnaik, managing director of GVFL, predicts more than 100 Japanese companies will come to Gujarat over the next two years.

"Lot of Japanese firms have shown interest in investing in Gujarat, such as Toshiba and Mitsubishi," he told The Business Standard. "Moreover, there are a few Japanese agencies such as JICA (Japan international Cooperation Agency) and JETRO (Japan External Trade Organisation) which are active in the state already and can be partnered with."

GVFL will register the fund with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) after the elections next month. Before then it plans to register a seperate small and medium enterprises (SMEs) dedicated fund with SEBI. The so-called Value Multiplier Fund is targeting around INR5 billion, with an average deal size of INR150 million. Pattnaik added that the SME fund is targeting a 20-25% IRR.

The largest fund attempted by GVFL to date is its INR10 billion Golden Gujarat Growth Fund - 1, which was launched in January 2011. The fund reached a first close of INR3.8 billion in March 2012, receiving commitments from the State Government of Gujarat and the Industrial Finance Corp. of India (IFCI)

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Fundraising
• South Asia
• Japan
• India
• Fundraising
• SME