Orios Closes $30 Mn Fund For Follow-On Investments

SUMMARY

The Select 1 fund invests between $4 Mn and $8 Mn per company

Orios is also expected to hit the market soon for raising an $80-$100 Mn third fund

The fund has invested in Series D & E rounds of PharmEasy, Series B & C rounds of direct-to-consumer brand Country Delight and the Series C round of GoMechanic

Mumbai-based Orios Venture Partners has announced the closing of $30 Mn Select Fund I. The fund has been raised primarily for follow-on investments into its existing portfolio startups that have performed well. Select Fund I, which invests between $4 Mn and $8 Mn per company, has already made five bets in PharmEasy, GoMechanic, Country Delight, Mobikwik, and Nazara, with two more investments likely to happen by the end of this year.

Mumbai-based Orios is also expected to hit the market soon for raising a $80 Mn – $100 Mn third fund, founder and managing partner Rehan Yar Khan.

“We had set up a Select Fund as there was high demand for capital from our portfolio companies and a VC cannot invest more than 10-15% of its flagship fund in a single startup in order to maintain diversity in portfolio,” said Rehan Yar Khan, Managing Partner, Orios Venture Partners.

Currently, investing from its second flagship fund, the early stage VC is also planning to raise a third fund by the end of this year which will be much larger than the second fund. It will be investing in 22-25 startups over a period of three years from this fund, according to Khan.

So far, the fund has invested in Series D & E rounds of PharmEasy, Series B & C rounds of direct-to-consumer brand Country Delight and the Series C round of GoMechanic. GoMechanic announced securing $42 Mn in Series C funding in a round led by Tiger Global Management yesterday.

Launched in 2014, the VC has exited Sapience after it was acquired by Credit Suisse, and Pipemonk which was acquired by Freshworks. Other exits include LetsMD, Ample, LocalPlay acquired by Dailyhunt, Yappily and PhotographAI acquired by Zest.

Apart from PharmEasy which became a unicorn this year, Khan is hopeful his VC’s portfolio startups GoMechanic and Country Delight will join the unicorn club later this year. Orios’ portfolio company Nazara made its IPO debut earlier this year. Pharmeasy and Mobikwik are also IPO-bound now.

In August 2020, the VC announced the third cohort of its seed-stage acceleration programme Misfits. The two-year-old Misfits accelerator offers mentorship and funding between $500K to $1.5 Mn to early stage ventures.