Prime Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital (VC), fund has closed its fourth largest fund. This was despite investor interest in Indian startups.
On February 24, the VC fund announced that the fund had been closed at $120million, which is higher than the $100 million originally planned. Moneycontrol reported August 25 last years that Fund IV would be used for 15-20 investments in new areas like Decentralised Finance, Crypto, Electric Vehicle and Gaming infrastructure platforms.
These investments will be made in addition to existing fund focus areas Fintech, EdTech and HealthTech, Consumer Internet and Global SaaS.
Prime Venture Partners’ Amit Somani is one of three Managing Partners. He said that he was humbled and greatly appreciated the support of his long-time LPs as well as new investors. This allowed him to successfully complete an oversubscribed fundraise. Prime VP has Fund IV and is now well-positioned to support a new group technology-dedefining startups in India as well as inspiring entrepreneurs.
The new fund brings the total capital under management of all Prime Venture Partners funds up to more than $250 million. Fund IV, in addition to existing investors is supported by International Finance Corporation (IFC), a part of the World Bank Group. It is a top tier university endowment and a top-tier Fund of Funds, as well as several global tech entrepreneurs.
Prime Venture Partners raised $8 million in 2012, $46 millions in 2015 and $72 million for their last fundraise in 2018.
Prime Venture Partners announced on January 13 that Foundation Private Equity had fully acquired the stakes of investors in Prime’s 2012 fund. This was done to provide investors with an exit from the Indian market.
Shripati Acharya and Sanjay Swamy started the fund. Somani joined the firm as a partner in recent years. The fund has made investments in interactive learning startup Quizziz and software solutions provider MyGate. It also invested in neobank NiYO, digital player MFine, Dozee, and neobank NiYO.
According to the Cambridge Associates benchmarks all Prime VP’s funds rank in the top decile among all global VC funds, according to the firm.
In India, startups have experienced a huge funding boom in the last year. They have seen their valuations rise and received large funding amounts from all stages. Indian startups have raised more than $35 billion, three-times the previous record.