Sanjay Nayar, Senior advisor for PE firm KKR India, announced the first close of his $125 million venture capital fund focused on early-stage tech investments in India. Investors in Sorin Investments, a fund founded by Sanjay, include the family offices of Nayar and Banga family, which owns Caravel Group headquartered in Hong Kong.
The fund will invest from $2 million to $10 million across 10 to 15 companies, participating in Series A and B rounds. The fund will focus on fintech, health tech, direct-to-consumer brands, ecommerce, business-to-business technology companies and Software-as-a-Service startups.
Sanjay Nayar New VC Fund appoints Anshul Bansal as a Founding Member
The fund has also appointed Anshul Bansal, former Vice President at Fireside Ventures and Harshita Kochar, a former associate at DAM Capital Advisors as founding members.
The announcement comes at a time when an increasing number of venture capital firms have sent out advisories to portfolio companies asking them to conserve cash. Growth rounds will be hard to come by, believe industry observers, as the likes of Tiger Global and SoftBank have adopted a wait and watch approach.
In an interview with a financial news daily, Sanjay Nayar said that the fund will be raising capital from nearly seven family offices and had received the necessary regulatory clearances to launch operations.
According to a recent report by IVCA and EY, private equity and venture capital investments in April 2022 declined 27 percent year-on-year to $5.5 billion as a result of the slowdown in growth rounds.
