PharmEasy Backer Orios Venture Returns INR 300 Cr To Fund I Investors

Orios Onboards Former Omidyar Executive Madhav Tandan As A Senior Partner

SUMMARY

Launched in 2014, the VC firm’s Fund I was concluded with a final close at INR 300 Cr in 2015

The fund allocated its resources, focusing significantly on marketplaces leading at 27.07%, followed by direct-to-consumer (D2C) at 17.7% and healthtech at 14.45%

Orios looks to further solidify its position with significant returns lined up in 2024 and 2025

Early-stage venture capital firm Orios Venture Partners, which counts Battery Smart, Karbon, ixigo, Mobikwik, CarDekho and Vedantu among its portfolio companies, has returned INR 300 Cr from Fund I to its investors.

Launched in 2014, the VC firm’s Fund I was concluded with a final close at INR 300 Cr in 2015.

The fund allocated its resources, focusing significantly on marketplaces leading at 27.07%, followed by direct-to-consumer (D2C) at 17.7% and healthtech at 14.45%. Among the major portfolios from the fund include PharmEasy, Country Delight and Zostel.

“Early-stage funds are a long journey as they grow along with the companies they invest in. During the journey, they also see ups and downs as some portfolio companies grow and others falter… We are glad to have returned 1X of the Fund, which means the corpus invested with us is back with investors and now the upside remains,” said Rehan Yar Khan, managing partner at Orios.

“The return of capital journey for us and many of our peers in the industry took longer than planned as Covid and its aftermath disrupted both financial markets and company sales in 2020,2021, and 2022. This was a double whammy as the Indian VC industry was nascent and had not completed one full return cycle,” Khan said.

Orios looks to further solidify its position with significant returns lined up in 2024 and 2025.

The VC firm said in a statement that it is currently investing from its fourth fund. It is more bullish on the opportunities for startups in India from here on given technology has expanded its reach across the country, extending beyond consumer internet to include B2B, SaaS, EVs, climatetech, and hardware.

Further, the Indian stock market’s substantial growth presents a favourable environment for tech IPOs, Orios said.

Orios was also one of the investors in beleaguered car servicing startup GoMechanic, which it wrote down amid controversies in the company.

In September last year, two former managing partners of Orios, Anup Jain and Rajeev Suri, stepped down from their positions to pursue other opportunities.

As per Inc42’s ‘Indian Tech Startup Funding Report 2023’, Indian startups secured a little over $10 Bn in funding by December 25, registering a 60% decline from $25 Bn raised in the year before.