InnoVen Capital Closes H1 2018 With Startup Funding Commitments Worth $60.9 Mn

InnoVen Capital India, a venture debt and speciality-lending firm has closed the first half of 2018 with commitments of funding worth $60.9 Mn (INR 418 Cr) to be invested in early and growth-stage startups.

So far, the Temasek-backed firm has disbursed $43.7 Mn (INR 300 Cr) of the total fund committed. Itis expected to invest the remaining capital within the next two months.

Ashish Sharma, CEO, InnoVen Capital said, “We closed 22 transactions in the first half on back of a strong deal flow and robust follow-on funding activity with our portfolio companies. We observe more and more startups warming up to venture debt as they look to optimize their capital structure while reducing dilution.”

As shared by the company, about 30% of the annual growth of the capital deployment was shown in H1 2018, as compared to H1 2017. During this period, Innoven Capital added 10 new companies to its portfolio, including Eruditus which offers executive learning programmes globally, logistics startup Elastic Run, among others..

Recently, Eruditus Education Pvt. Ltd raised $2.3 Mn (INR 16 Cr) from InnoVen Capital. Also, in September 2017, the VC firm invested about $15.4 Mn in online travel company Yatra, which was said to be the largest- ever venture debt deal funded by a firm in India.

In this April, Gurugram-based B2B marketplace and SME lending company, Power2SME also raised a debt financing of $6.2Mn (INR 40 Cr) from InnoVen Capital.

“We continue to derive our strength from our well-diversified portfolio, strong relationships and a global footprint across India, South-East Asia and China”. added Ashish

According to InnoVen Capital, about 60% of total deployment in H12018 was contributed by follow-on funding to existing portfolio companies to support them through their growth stage.

The follow-on funding transactions of Innoven include Pepperfry, Power2SME, Chaipoint, Capillary, Treebo, Bizongo, Epigamia, and Shadowfax.

Going further, InnoVen Capital is undergoing discussions with startups to write larger cheques and hence expect the pace of capital deployment to continue briskly in the second half of the year as well.

“Large ticket follow-on investments will continue to dominate our investment pattern going forward,” added Ashish.

As of June 2018 end, InnoVen Capital India has cumulatively funded venture debt worth over $330 Mn in more than 120 tech startups across India.

Also, InnoVen Capital has been able to significantly increase its average investment ticket size to $2.1- $2.3 Mn (INR 15-16 Cr) from $729K – $1 Mn (INR 5-7 Cr) it was writing earlier.