SAIF Raising $400 Mn For Its New India-Focussed Fund

SAIF Partners, an early backer of unicorns like Paytm and Swiggy plans to raise $400 Mn for its new India-dedicated fund. These plans come a little over two years after it closed a previous fund and will take its assets under management to over $1 Bn.  The new fund will be larger than its previous three funds, which have consistently been $350 Mn.  

SAIF has closed about six investments this year across sectors like consumer brands, software, education technology and financial technology. These companies include energy bar maker Yoga Bar, SaaS-based startup Zomentum, Gurugram-based edtech startup Camp K12 and Jodo, which allows users to pay school fees in instalments. 

Some of the other companies in SAIF’s portfolio include home services company UrbanClap, education tech startup Unacademy, baby care products retailer FirstCry and entertainment ticketing startup BookMyShow. The latest development comes as venture capital investments have started bouncing back, after dropping earlier this year due to pandemic. 

SAIF’s move to raise $400 Mn was reported by TOI, which accessed a filing with US securities market regulator US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“For SAIF Partners, fund-raising typically does not take long given their track record. They will look to close the fund by end of the year,” said one of the sources briefed on the matter to TOI. 

While early-stage venture bets are its main focus, SAIF also invests about 20% of the corpus in public market transactions, where it holds a stake in companies for a long period. The firm has a portfolio of over 60 companies, with offices in Gurgaon and Bengaluru.

SAIF Partners has been investing in India since 2001. It specialises in private equity and venture capital across Asia. Its focus area includes IT, ITes, industrials, financial services, Internet, consumer product, and mobile. 

Indian Startup Funding Recovers In Q3 2020

Compared to Q2 2020, both the funding amount and deal count recovered by 167% and 46% respectively. However, the funding amount still remains 32% lower compared to Q1 2020, whereas the deal count was 25% higher in Q1. When compared to Q3 2019, both the funding amount and deals in Q3 2020 remained relatively low, indicating the adverse impact of the pandemic on startup investments in 2020.

A study by Inc42Plus has revealed that between January to September 2020, so far $8.1 Bn has been invested into Indian startups across 652 funding deals. Out of which 51% or $4.1 Bn was in Q1 2020. Whereas in terms of deal count Q3 2020 had the highest contribution, accounting for 40% or 261 out of the 652 deals recorded this year (as of 25th Sept).

While SAIF Partners shared the sixth slot with Matrix Partners, venture capital funds — Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners gained the top slots, while early-stage investor — Mumbai Angel Network took the third slot with 7 deals.