SUMMARY
In His New Role, Mark Mobius Will Help Equanimity Investments To Evaluate Its Investments, Exits
Mumbai-based Equanimity Investments has announced today that Mark Mobius, former Executive Chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group and a prominent emerging markets fund manager, has joined the funds’ Investment Committee (IC).
With this, Mobius will help the company in evaluating investment proposals, directing investment and exit decisions and also reviewing the overall portfolio on an ongoing basis.
On the occasion, Mark Mobius said, “I am excited about the investment opportunity in the Indian early stage ecosystem. Equanimity is the ideal partner given the team’s strengths, their focus, credibility and most importantly, their experience.”
In a related development, Mobius is also reportedly starting a fund management firm which will invest in emerging and frontier market companies focused on environmental, social and governance (ESG) ideas.
It is expected to be an open-ended long-only firm, which will be based in Luxembourg and London.
About Equanimity Investments: From 2017 To Present
Equanimity Investments was launched in 2017 by Rajesh Sehgal to invest in companies with innovative business models that are engaged in the development of new products or services.
Rajesh Sehgal had previously served as the Head of Private Equity (Southeast Asia, South Africa and Middle East) at Franklin Templeton Investment.
Mark Mobius, who backs Equanimity Investments, left Templeton Emerging Markets Group in January 2018.
Speaking on the collaboration, Rakesh Sehgal said, “We are truly delighted and proud to have the wisdom and experience that Mark Mobius brings in to sharpen our investment process and build a portfolio of early stage companies that can be truly global in their business.”
Equanimity invests in startups, emerging or early stage venture capital undertakings, that are mainly involved in new products, new services, technologies, intellectual property rights based activities.
Equanimity Investments also recently announced first close of its $31.4 Mn fund with $11 Mn (INR 70 Cr). At the time, Sehgal said that the company was focused on deploying capital to back businesses that use technology as their backbone to create world-class businesses across sectors.
Also, in October 2017, Equanimity Investments teamed up with Sanctum Wealth Management to launch a $15.4 Mn (INR 100 Cr) debt venture capital fund, targeting early stage startups.
Sehgal had clarified then that the fund will be used to back 20 early-stage tech startups across sectors.The fund horizon will span 7 years, extendable by 2 years.
He had stated at the time, “The focus is tech-enabled companies. By that, what we mean is technology should help the business scale up rapidly. Secondly, the technology should ensure a sustainable business model. So essentially, we are looking at Pre Series A and Series A firms that are using technology to bring in scalability and sustainability.”
Whether the support and expertise of Mark Mobius will help Equanimity Investments to zero in on promising tech startups, while also making successful exits from prior investments, remains to be seen.
