Helion Venture takes wraps off India fund

BANGALORE: Helion Venture Partners has announced the launch of its $140-million, multi-stage India-specific fund. Helion Venture Partners is the brainchild of the likes of Sanjeev Aggarwal(founder of BPO firm-Daksh which was acquired by IBM), the former India head of Carlyle Group Kanwaljit Singh and the former co-founder of Junglee.com Ashish Gupta.

In keeping with the technology-laden background of Helion’s promoters, the fund will seek to invest in those companies which are leveraging technology. This means that the technology arena comprising outsourcing, products, mobile and the Internet space would be looked at very closely.

“Our aim is to partner entrepreneurs to build world class companies and we will leverage our experience of building and scaling up businesses,” said Mr Kanwaljit Singh, the MD of the firm. The fund intends to invest upto $2m in case of entry-level firms going up to $8-10m in case of mid-sized/late-stage firms.

Elucidating on the need for an India-specific fund, Mr Aggarwal said that the country was an obvious choice given the robust economic growth rates. “The fund sees clear long-term potential in innovative companies,”he added. This India fund has already identified its first investment-$ 2.2 million — being invested in Bangalore-based mobile technology firm.

Speaking to the media, Mr Sourabh Jain said that although there had been a proliferation of the Internet in the Indian context, close to 80% of the Internet users relied either on cyber-cafes or office for accessing the it. “A mechanism which relies on using mobiles for say airline ticket booking, buying movie tickets is bound to gain traction,” he noted.