Endiya Partners Announces Final Close Of INR 500 Cr Fund-II With BIRAC AcE Investment

Hyderabad-based early-stage venture capital firm Endiya Partners has raised INR 17.5 Cr from the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council’s (BIRAC) AcE Fund, for the final close of its INR 500 Cr Fund-II, through which Endiya has already made three investments with more in the pipeline.

Besides the AcE Fund, the India-Japan Fund of Funds infused nearly $6.6 Mn (INR 50 Cr) in the Fund II. Besides this, Endiya Partners also raised $10 Mn (nearly INR 75 Cr) from World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), which also committed an additional $10 Mn for direct co-investments.

Founded in 2016 by Sateesh Andra, Ramesh Byrapaneni and Abhishek Srivastava, Endiya Partners, Endiya has invested in several Indian B2B startups in healthtech, enterprise SaaS, cybersecurity and other allied sectors. With the new fund, it will enter funding rounds with an average ticket size between $1 Mn and $1.5 Mn for new investments and $4 Mn – $5 Mn in follow-on rounds in its existing portfolio. The fund would be looking to back 18-20 startups. It claims to have made three investments from the fund and with two more to be confirmed in the coming months.

Part of the government’s focus on developing biotech incubators and clusters through the BioNEST scheme, BIRAC is a not-for-profit public sector enterprise under the Department of Biotechnology. Under the BIRAC AcE Fund, announced in 2017-2018, the expected outlay was INR 150 Cr for three years i.e up to 2020-21.

“We believe that it’s time for B2B product companies to go regional as well as global. It’s a similar strategy to Fund I where we made 12 investments; in this fund we’ll make 18-20 investments,” Andra, managing director, Endiya Partners, was quoted as saying by ET. He added that the primary focus would be on the B2B segment.

Its first fund portfolio includes companies such as consumer lending startup Kissht, SaaS platform Darwinbox, healthtech startup SigTuple, solar power startup Cygni Energy, fitness and wellness company Cure.fit, mobile app management startup Hansel.io, artificial intelligence startup AlphaICs, semiconductor startup Steradian, healthcare management system eKincare, SaaS product SlangLabs, and cloud kitchen InnerChef. Endiya Partners closed its debut Fund I at INR 175 Cr in 2017.

Besides this, the early stage VC firm has exited from Little Eye Labs (acquired by Facebook), IncNut (bought by Japan’s istyle Inc) and ShieldSquare (acquired by Radware Inc).