The former Arvind Sports & Fashion Brands and Puma government will be a part of the founding staff of the Bengaluru-based agency, which contains Samir Kumar, Parag Dhol and Rutvik Doshi.
The early-stage VC agency, which made 35 investments aggregating to Rs 863 crore in Indian startups via its first three funds, goals to make the primary shut of Rs 300 crore of its fourth fund within the second half of 2023. The fourth fund of Rs 900 crore was launched final yr.
“With his extensive experience in building and scaling businesses, we are confident that Rajiv’s appointment will add immense value to our portfolio companies. His entrepreneurial mindset and ability to identify potential pitfalls and opportunities will help our start-ups navigate the challenges of growth and achieve their full potential,” Doshi, who can also be a basic companion at Athera mentioned.
Talking to ET about Athera’s Fund-IV, Mehta mentioned that the agency would proceed its funding thesis of backing corporations within the shopper web, B2B software-as-a-service (SaaS), and rising tech areas.
Speaking concerning the shopper web phase, he mentioned, “What we saw in the early stage of e-commerce was pure commerce, which was followed by food delivery that came in the last few years. Now what we see is that anything to do with credit or finance. Several players have entered this space. Our thesis is that what happened with e-commerce will now happen in health. Health will begin to come as a service”.
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This shall be Athera’s second unique India-focused fund. The agency has been investing in Indian startups since 2006. Athera’s first two funds had been targeted on funding alternatives throughout India and the US.Through its third fund, which Mehta mentioned is nearly totally deployed now barring the reserves, Athera invested throughout 14 new startups together with space-tech agency Pixxel; interactive toys firm Playshifu and automotive firm Euler Motors.
The Fund-III, which was Rs 369 crore in corpus, was launched in 2019. By comparability, via the Fund-IV, Athera plans to put money into round 18 startups even with a corpus that’s greater than double of its final fund.
“We have done 14 investments in Fund 3, and except for reserves it has been fully deployed…we believe (from Fund-IV) we’ll invest in about 18 companies – give or take 10% more or less – so it will be roughly Rs 50 crore a company, and so the first cheque size will be roughly Rs 18-20 crore. Then we’ll keep some reserves so that in the follow-on rounds, we don’t get diluted too much,” he mentioned.
He additionally mentioned that for the newest fund, near 90% of the restricted companions have been with the agency from earlier than, whereas the remaining 10% could be new sponsors.
“There are certain LPs who have been with us since 2008, there are also founders who we have given exits. We have institutions that have increased their allocation over funds progressively. In Fund-IV, a large part of the LPs are the ones who have been with us before, and there will be some portion that are new investors,” he mentioned.
Some of the distinguished founders of Athera’s portfolio corporations, who’re investing as a part of the newest fundraise, embrace Redbus’ Phanindra Sama, and PolicyBazaar’s Yashish Dahiya and Alok Bansal.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com