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The Future Leaders Fund II is targeting to raise INR 750 Cr with a green shoe option of another INR 500 Cr

The fund will be used to invest small minority stakes in startups working in digital, consumption, and financial services sectors

Majority of the large first fund investors have upsized their investments and several large family offices participated in the round

Boutique investment banking firm Avendus has announced the first close of its Future Leaders Fund II with an aggregate commitment of INR 584 Cr ($78.5 Mn).

The category-II AIF registered fund is targeting to raise INR 750 Cr with a green shoe option of INR 500 Cr.  The fund has a five year tenure with an option to extend it by another two years.

The fund will be used to invest in privately held, scaled up market leaders/emerging leaders and invest small minority stakes in their businesses.  It will primarily focus on companies in the digital, consumption, and financial services segments.

The firm’s first fund — Avendus Future Leaders Fund I — was launched in 2019 and has made investments in unicorns like Lenskart Solutions, Delhivery, VerSe Innovation, among others. 

Ritesh Chandra, Managing Partner, Avendus Future Leaders Fund said, “The fund is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the strengths of the Avendus ecosystem and participate in the value creation journey. With unparalleled access to marquee businesses and deep long-standing relationships with entrepreneurs, the fund seeks to invest behind market leaders and emerging leaders in the digital, consumption and financial services segments.”

Established in 1999, Avendus is a financial services firm with an emphasis on differentiated solutions in the areas of investment banking, wealth management, credit solutions, and asset management.  

With regards to the profile of the investors, the company said that a majority of the large first fund investors have upsized their investments in the fund and saw participation from several large family offices.

Besides Avendus, venture capitalist firms like Stellaris Venture Partners and Chiratae Ventures, also announced closing of their funds earlier this month. 

While Stellaris closed its second fund at $225 Mn with more than $300 Mn in its assets under management, Chiratae Ventures closed its fourth fund over subscribed by 25% at $337 Mn. 

Aside from this, Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham along with Manav Garg, Shubham Gupta, Avinash Raghava also launched their own fund — the Together Fund — with an initial corpus of $85 Mn to back SaaS offering startups.