Sanjay Nayar’s Sorin Investments Raises $100 Mn In First Close Of Debut Fund

Sorin Investments, a VC firm set up by KKR’s Sanjay Nayar and Caravel Group’s Angad Banga, has raised $100 Mn (INR 798 Cr) from multiple family offices for its debut fund.

Sorin Investments’ first close saw investments from Henry Kravis, cofounder, KKR and Sunil Kant Munjal, chairman, Hero Enterprises and a few more family offices from India and abroad. Nayar and Banga invested their personal capital in Sorin’s debut fund as sponsor commitments.

Sorin Investments will write a dozen cheques worth between $2 Mn and $10 Mn for startups in Series A to Series C.

“We’ve got seven to eight families to invest in the first close of the fund, both local and international, including Henry Kravis and Sunil Munjal. We will be investing from early series A to early series C,” Nayar told Mint.

The two veteran investors will look to raise as much as around $130 Mn for Sorin’s debut fund, with a greenshoe option of $30 Mn. News of a VC venture from Nayar and Banga first broke last week; a Bloomberg report said Sorin Investments raised $125 Mn from the Nayar and Banga family offices.

The Nayar family, spearheaded by Sanjay and Falguni Nayar, Nykaa’s founder, hold a 52% stake in Nykaa. The ecommerce startup went for an IPO last year and its shares opened at INR 1,420 today (July 18).

According to Nayar, Sorin Investments will favour investing in fintech startups.

“Fintech obviously will be a big part of our investments, but not just because we are from financial services. The way the government is driving financial inclusion and the dire need for financial inclusion in the country and making financial products available, both lending and non-lending, is a tremendous opportunity,” Nayar said. 

Sorin Investments will also invest in consumer internet, SaaS, healthtech and proptech startups.

“The latest iteration of India’s technology revolution will be homegrown Indian companies that are building technologies that can be used around the world. These include consumer, SaaS, fintech, healthcare and even proptech. All of these are areas where India has a massive scale domestically. These businesses can be built for the domestic market and then exported out,” said Banga.

Addressing the fears of an ongoing funding winter, Nayar said that the trend will be short-lived.

“There is a so-called winter in the tech industry, but I don’t think that is an issue at all and I believe the summer will come pretty quickly because India is one of the destinations where capital is bound to come back. You’re going to see a lot of capital come into India,” he said.

Nayar’s comments are backed by the fact that in the first half of 2022 alone, investors from across the world either announced or launched 78 funds worth $12.3 Bn, according to Inc42 data.