Varanium Capital Announces First Close Of INR 200 Cr NexGen Early-Stage Fintech Fund

Mumbai-based Varanium Capital has announced the first close of its INR 200 Cr venture capital fund ‘Varanium NexGen’, which will exclusively focus on early-stage fintech startups.

Varanium NexGen plans to invest in startups that are developing strong technologies on “frugal” business models and have the potential to grow. The fund claims to be considering close to 20 startups for its first investment.

The Varanium NexGen Fund will be led by the managing partner of the venture capital fund Aparajit Bhandarkar.

Varanium Capital founder T.S. Anantakrishnana, along with Citrus Pay cofounders Jitendra Gupta and Amrish Rau will be joining the investment committee as independent members. Jitendra Gupta is also the founder of IT support and web designing platform Amica Tech.

In addition, the fund has also got various limited partners, which comprise of business leaders, professionals, family offices such as that of Mohandas Pai, former director of Infosys and chairman of Aarin Capital and Manipal Global Education.

With over 17 years of banking and investing experience, Bhandarkar has also been the CEO of a fintech focused accelerator and fund DICE. He is also a seed investor and director at NeoBanking startup BankOpen.co and stock analytics platform Trendelyne.com. His other investments include microlending startup Smartcoin and digital debt collection platform Moneytor.

Other Ventures By Varanium Capital

Varanium Capital is a SEBI-registered portfolio management company that provides investment solutions to high networth individuals (HNI) and institutional clients. The company is also the investment advisor to Varanium asset management and manages over INR 5K Cr assets in offshore and domestic funds.

Varanium has also set up Aimcrest, a digital platform to connect startups to investors and corporate customers. For the portal, the company has partnered with “Mumbai FinTech Hub”, established by Maharashtra government for implementing Maharashtra State FinTech Policy.

Varanium’s Aimcrest has helped setup mfhfind.com, which claims to have over 1200 startup, 50 VC funds and 10 corporate partners. This platform aims to provide unique investment opportunities in the fintech space to the Varanium NexGen fund.