Airavat Capital Launches Tech-Focussed Fund Based Out Of GIFT City

Public equities investment firm Airavat Capital on Tuesday (June 20) announced the launch of a global technology fund, Airavat Global Technology Fund R (AGTF R), which will be based out of GIFT City.

The tech fund has already received interest worth over $40 Mn from investors including existing stakeholders of Airavat Capital, other VC investors, technology founders/CTOs, and family offices, the firm said in a statement.

The fund will offer Indian HNIs and institutional investors the opportunity to leverage Indian technology ecosystem insight to capitalise on the growth potential of top listed technology companies worldwide, the statement added.

Airavat said that its fund is the first-ever global technology fund to be based out of GIFT City. 

“With the launch and migration of our funds to GIFT City, we think we are at the beginning of a tectonic shift in the Indian investment landscape. India now has the second largest software developer community globally and could become the largest in the coming years. We think the time is right to build a world-class global technology hedge fund that expresses India’s insight and knowledge advantage globally,” Rohit Bhat and Suraj Subramaniam, managing partners of Airavat Capital, said.

While AGTF R will cater to Indian pools of capital, Airavat Capital said it is also launching GTF NR, a sister fund of AGTF R, aimed at raising capital from investors in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. 

GTF NR has seen interest from family offices and HNIs in Southeast Asia and Middle East regions, it said. 

“The launch of GTF NR will further reinforce GIFT City’s status as an emerging international investing hub, paving the way for future investors to take advantage of the enabling regulation,” the statement added.

Airavat said it recently also redomiciled a foreign portfolio investment (FPI) vehicle to India with the launch of Airavat Capital India Fund (ACIF) in GIFT city, becoming one of the first fund managers to migrate under the recent regulatory framework for off-market transfer of securities. The ACIF pools capital from offshore investors for India investments.

Airavat Capital is an investment management firm that is focussed on listed technology-enabled businesses across growing sectors such as consumer, financial services, technology and pharma. 

The development comes at a time when the government is aggressively promoting GIFT City to turn it into a thriving financial hub.

The efforts also seem to be paying dividends as around 55 AIFs and 30 fintech companies have set up their subsidiaries at GIFT City IFSC in the past few years. While there are some issues that need to be addressed to give clarity to investors, GIFT IFSC is expected to trigger reverse flipping among startups and VCs, experts recently told Inc42.