Contrarian Drishti Partners Hits First Close Of Its maiden Fund, Invests In BookMyCab

Contrarian Drishti Partners has hit first close of its maiden angel fund Contrarian Vriddhi Fund I at INR 15 Cr. ($2.4 Mn), the company said. The firm has announced two startups it has made from the fund. First is an unnamed medical devices maker for developing markets and second has gone to BookMyCab. The fund has a target of $9.5 Mn.

The company said that their first product is an affordable perinatal monitoring device that can continuously record maternal and fetal vital stats ranging from heartbeat to cervical dilation, and benefit any manpower constrained setting in healthcare delivery.

“This is the first licensed taxi aggregator operating in Mumbai and it will use the funding to expand across geographies and vehicle categories,” said Aditi Gupta, associate principal, Contrarian Drishti Partners.” the company added.

It had received approval to register under SEBI’s AIF norms last September. Somak Ghosh, managing partner, Contrarian Drishti Partners, said, “Our strategy is to back entrepreneurs who are passionate about developing new technologies and business models to take essential goods and services to the mass markets in India. Accelerators and incubators in various academic institutions and cities are doing excellent work in helping entrepreneurs seek their first external investors and we will continue to partner with them.”

The firm had plans to raise a VC fund with a corpus of $50 Mn to invest in Series A round which it later refined and decided to invest at angel level and cut back the fund to INR 60 Cr.

The firm has a target of making two investments per quarter and has a fixed timeline of six to nine months to reach its final close at INR 60 Cr.