Mumbai-based Nexus Venture Partners is in advanced talks to raise a $700 million fund, the second-biggest such pool to be garnered in the country in the past year. This new fund will invest in India and US-based technology firms, Reuters reported.
The planned fundraising will reportedly close within two months, indicating that investors may start getting more comfortable with Indian technology company valuations after a global tech sector rout in 2022.
Founded in 2006, the India-US venture fund was one of the first Indian venture capital firms to invest in U.S. and India-based software start-ups. The new fund will take the firm's assets under management (AUM) to over $2 billion.
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Naren Gupta, who ran a software company in the US for 15 years, co-founded Nexus Venture with Sandeep Singhal and former eBay India and PayPal executive Suvir Sujan. Singhal left the firm in 2021.
Nexus Venture Partners had invested in unicorn start-ups like Unacademy, Postman, Delhivery and Druva and has global pension funds, billionaire family offices and endowment funds as its existing investors.
The company aims to invest the new fund, reportedly the biggest raised in India after Sequoia's $2.85 billion fund, in early-stage funding rounds of Indian internet and technology startups, as well as the US-based software firms.
"Investing in the US software firms will help Nexus hedge its bets and provide more stability than high-profile Indian startups which often burn billions of dollars in the growth phase to achieve fast growth and attract users," the report added.
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