Former Jio President Floats VC Firm Playbook, Marks First Close Of Maiden Fund At $130 Mn

Nearly a year after departing venture capital (VC) firm Pivot Ventures, Vikas Choudhary has floated his new investment firm Playbook Partners. Emerging out of stealth mode, Playbook Partners has announced the first close of its maiden $250 Mn (about INR 2,099 Cr) fund at $130 Mn (about INR 1,091 Cr).

In a statement, Playbook said the first close came within four months of inception on account of strong institutional investor interest from investors from Europe, the US, Middle East, and India. However, it didn’t give the name of the investors.

The VC firm is eyeing the final close of its SEBI-approved Category II alternative investment fund in the near future. Playbook plans to back tech-led businesses in “large addressable markets” that have “meaningful” scale, healthy operating margins and high growth. 

Speaking with Inc42, Choudhary said that the sector-agnostic fund will look to back growth and late-stage startups across Series B, C and D rounds. He, however, added that the firm will prefer infusing capital in startups operating in the healthcare, climate change, and SaaS sectors with strong business fundamentals. 

The VC firm didn’t give details about the number of startups it plans to back or the fund’s average median ticket size. However, Choudhary said that Playbook plans to make its first investment in the next few weeks and has over 200 growth-stage startups in the pipeline for potential investments. 

He attributed the investor interest for the fund to a result of the VC firm’s focus on growth-stage startups and his experience. 

“There are over 1 Lakh startups in India and less than 1,000 startups which have reached growth stage. Therefore, it is an under-represented asset class in India. Further, it takes a certain kind of DNA to partake in growth capital. That’s where we have an edge because our leadership team has several decades of hands-on experience in building growth stage companies,” he said.

Prior to starting Playbook, Choudhary helmed Pivot Ventures as a partner for over a decade between 2010 and 2023. Pivot Ventures is a multi-family office focussed on alternative investments, with a portfolio of over 40 startups, including InMobi, Myntra, Fractal, Nazara, Policybazaar, Rapido, among others. 

Choudhary also helmed Reliance’s Jio as its president for five years between 2017 and 2022. During his stint at Jio, Choudhary claims to have led ecommerce, telecom, media, and fintech verticals. 

Besides Choudhary, Playbook Partners’ leadership team also includes ex-McKinsey executive Dushyant Singh and Sistema Asia Capital’s senior partner Sumit Jain.

Playbook also said that its operating partners include Asian Paints’ vice chairman Manish Choksi, Aakash Education’s founder and CEO Aakash Chaudhry and EY’s partner and COO Milan Sheth. 

The firm said that the operating partners have come in through their family offices or in their personal capacity. Further, it counts Nazara founder Nitish Mittersain, InMobi CEO Naveen Tewari, among others on its advisory board. 

The latest fund launch comes at a time when the Indian startup ecosystem is emerging from the pangs of a two-year long funding winter. As a result, India-focussed VCs and PEs have been sitting on a dry powder worth $5 Bn raised in the past one year. 

Earlier last month, early-stage venture capital firm Ankur Capital was said to be looking to raise a target corpus of INR 1,200 Cr for its Fund III. In the same month, VC firm Trifecta Capital launched its fourth fund with a total corpus size of INR 2,000 Cr. 

Last month, VC firm Sauce.vc also marked the final close of its third fund at INR 365 Cr.