Lighthouse Canton Closes Early Stage Indian Startups Focussed AIF At INR 350 Cr

Singapore-based global investment institution Lighthouse Canton announced the final closure of LC Nueva AIF, a scheme of Luminere Investment Trust, at INR 350 Cr. 

The VC firm said it initially aimed to raise INR 300 Cr, including the green shoe option, for the fund. Later, the fund size was increased to INR 350 Cr following high demand from family offices and institutional investors who wanted to participate in the fund.

The LC Nueva AIF claimed to have received significant interest from investors, including large single-family offices and institutional clients like the government-backed Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). 

To launch its maiden venture capital fund, LC Nueva, Lighthouse Canton had partnered with Delhi-based investment holding company Nueva Capital. The fund is focussed at early stage Indian startups and will invest in their pre-Series A and Series A rounds.

Lighthouse Canton said the fund invests in revenue generating startups that also have strong unit economics and are not capital-intensive.

The LC Nueva AIF is a sector-agnostic fund with an inclination towards healthtech, consumer tech, fintech, and edtech businesses. Currently, it has a portfolio of around 30-35 companies.

Some of its portfolio companies include EV financing startup Revfin, career tech platform Internshala, and third-party logistics startup Zyngo.

While about half of the total corpus will be deployed in further building its portfolio, the VC fund will use the other half for the follow-on rounds for existing portfolio companies. 

“The objective of this deployment strategy is to maximise alpha for our LPs and the most efficient possible use of capital raised,” said Sohil Chand, founding partner and CIO of LC Nueva AIF. “It also helps us maintain our equity share in subsequent rounds of capital raised by our portfolio companies and not get diluted.”

Over the last seven years, the AIF investments in India have seen a tenfold jump, with assets under administration at nearly INR 7 Lakh Cr, said Lighthouse Canton in its statement. 

The VC major is also of the opinion that the present trends suggest that AIFs have the potential to grow into a substantial industry in the future, likely approaching the size of India’s INR 46 Lakh crore mutual fund industry. 

Earlier this year, Lighthouse Canton announced the first close of its INR 550 Cr India-focused venture debt fund. 

Micro VC fund CapFort Ventures has launched an INR 200 Cr category II AIF in July this year. In September, investment tech platform Soonicorn Ventures also received a nod from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to launch a category-I AIF angel fund.