Venture debt fund pioneer Trifecta Capital has raised $130 million (about ₹1,000 crore) from domestic investors for the first close of its maiden late-stage venture capital fund Trifecta Leaders Fund-I. The firm is looking to take advantage of the massive opportunity and investor interest arising out of the maturing Indian startup ecosystem that is starting to see its most valued companies head to public markets.
The fund was launched three months ago and has a target corpus of ₹1,500 crore (about $200 million). The first close was oversubscribed and saw participation from domestic investors. Existing investors of Trifecta Capital’s Venture Debt Funds have also made significant investments. For the balance ₹500 crore (about $70 million), the firm is in discussions with several domestic and global institutional investors.
Trifecta Leaders Fund-I will invest in a targeted set of category leaders, selected predominantly from Trifecta Capital’s portfolio across its venture debt funds, where the firm has proprietary knowledge of the businesses as well as deep relationships with founders and investors.
The Fund will invest ₹100 crore- ₹200 crore ($15-30 million) each in 10-12 companies for minority stakes through a combination of primary and secondary positions.
“I think people have started to appreciate that this is a structural gap in the market. The last leg of the journey, typically one to three years to the finish line, is a very different stage of investing, which requires different capabilities, not just raising capital, but thinking very thoughtfully about entry points and exit planning, all the extra work that we have to do to get these companies to the finish line. I think that investors also appreciated that we’ve had a relationship with many of these companies. So, the access was a unique advantage, it gave us knowledge of these companies, it gave us the ability to cherry-pick some of the best companies to now do something that investors really liked,” said Rahul Khanna, managing partner, Trifecta Capital.
Trifecta has onboarded Lavanya Ashok (former managing director, Goldman Sachs, Principal Investment Area) as partner, and Surbhi Garg (previously at Reliance Jio Strategic Investments) as a vice president. It is also augmenting the team with strong private and public markets investing expertise.
