India's ChrysCapital reaches $350m first close on Fund VII

While the quantum of capital raised so far is in line with expectations, the first close - reached towards the end of December - has come sooner than the GP anticipated, according to a source familiar with the situation.

ChrysCapital closed its previous fund in May 2012 at the hard cap of $510 million. This was significantly smaller than Fund V, which closed at $960 million in 2007, only for the corpus to be reduced by $300 million two years later in recognition of the weaker investment climate. Funds I through IV are now fully liquidated, while Fund V has already returned more than the capital committed by LPs.

With a similar-sized corpus to that of its predecessor, the strategy for the new fund will be largely unchanged. Check sizes will range from $20 million to around $100 million, with a sweet spot of $50-60 million. The sector focus is a combination of services - healthcare, financial services and business services - and consumer.

In the past 12 months, ChrysCapital has made investments in the likes of South Indian Bank and Infogain, a US IT consulting firm. Over the course of 2015, ChrysCapital has secured exits from ING Vysya - having doubled its money on a $69 million investment made in 2011 - and Mankind Pharma, selling its 11% stake to Capital International for just over $200 million for a gain of nearly 10x.

ChrysCapital's first close takes the amount raised by India-focused private equity funds - including partial and final closes - past the $4.3 billion mark. This is the most raised since 2011 and the fifth-highest annual total on record.

In the private equity space, India Value Fund Advisors and Everstone Capital raised $700 million and $730 million, respectively, but the most significant spike was seen by venture capital managers. A total of $2 billion entered VC funds in 2015, including Accel Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, and Sequoia Capital.

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• Topics
• Fundraising
• South Asia
• GPs
• Growth
• ChrysCapital Management
• GPs
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• India