Beams Fintech Fund rakes in Rs 270 cr in first close of its maiden round

Beams Fintech Fund, one of India’s first growth-stage fintech funds, founded by fintech veterans Sagar Agarvwal, Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anuj Golecha, A nil Jain, Gaurav Jain and Venture Catalysts, has completed the first close of its maiden fund. This came within three months of its official launch.

The firm has already received commitments of up to Rs 270 crore or $36 million for the fund and is in advanced stages of completing the documentation. Beams will back growth-stage companies operating at the intersection of the financial services and technology (fintech) sector. The fund aims to reach the target corpus of Rs 750 crore or $100 million within the next nine months.

The first close saw participation from marquee domestic and international investors, including banks, NBFCs, fintech’s large family offices, financial services’ CXOs and fintech founders.


Existing investors of Venture Catalysts and 9 Unicorns (first fund from Venture Catalysts) also backed Beams in its first close.

The fund is now in advanced discussions with several domestic and global institutional investors and family offices for its subsequent closes and to achieve its initial target corpus of Rs 750 crore.

Step towards growth
The Series B and C-oriented fund will primarily invest in 10-12 companies from the fund and will maintain its fintech-focused theme. Beams follows a top-down and bottom-up approach towards investing. The team has narrowed down on six major themes within the fintech space, including embedded finance, products and technologies, enterprise SAAS, neo-banks and platforms catering to MSMEs.

Beams has already begun its innings by investing in a millennial-focused neo-bank, Niyo Solutions Inc, last month, alongside Accel and Lightrock India.

Anuj Golecha, co-founder and partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said, “It’s remarkable for us to achieve a first close for Beams in just a few months after the official launch. It’s all thanks to our investors. This success in fund-raising has come on the back of our track record and the team that we have built for Beams. We are building a strong operating team with deep experience in the fintech space for the execution of this growth-stage investing strategy, and the founders are appreciating the same.”

Strong team
Beams has already onboarded Naveen Surya as the founding team member. The fund has also added several marquee partners, founders, mentors and advisors including Deepak Ahuja, Dharmesh Gathani, Ronil Sujan, Rakesh Surana, Suumit Shah, Nakul Beri and Sunil Kulkarni to add value to the portfolio companies.

Sagar Agarvwal, co-founder and partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said, “We are very grateful to our investors for believing in our strategy and our ability to create and build the growth stage-focused fintech investing fund.

With Beams, we are building a very unique platform that brings together experienced founders and institutions to help and cross-pollinate with our portfolio entrepreneurs on strategy, team building and growth.”

Naveen Surya, fintech expert partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said, “These are exciting times for us and validation of the large-scale investing opportunity in the fintech space in India at growth stages. Through this fund and the platform, we aim to provide investors with a value creation opportunity in the fintech domain and access to one of the most powerful fintech networks in India.”

“With a strong institutional investor interest in Beams, we hope to create more than $25-30 billion in value for the fintech ecosystem over the next couple of years,” said Agarvwal.