Chennai-based alternative financing firm Anicut Capital is set to raise ₹1,000 crore for its second and largest fund, after receiving approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).
Anicut Capital’s Grand Anicut Fund II, a category 2 alternative investment fund (AIF), got an approval for a fund size of ₹700 crore, with an additional greenshoe option to raise ₹300 crore, taking the entire corpus to ₹1,000 crore.
According to reports, the firm is in talks with high net-worth individuals, family offices, and domestic institutions, and expects to raise the entire corpus by March-June 2020.
Talking about the new fund to ET, I A S Balamurugan, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Anicut Capital, said, “With this larger fund, we will have the ability to write larger cheques of ₹35-40 crore per investment,”
He further added, “While we are sector agnostic, we are specifically looking at companies with a strong cash flow and those that are reasonably Ebitda positive or on that path.”
The investment firm will be looking at event-driven financing opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) such as acquisition financing, buybacks, bridge financing, especially across cash flow positive consumer and education startups. While Anicut will try to avoid real-estate, media and entertainment startups.
With the new fund, Anicut will be looking to invest in around 25 startups through the five-year shelf life of the fund.
Anicut Capital was founded by Ashvin Chadha and I A S Balamurugan. The firm offers debt funding to SMEs, enabling them to accelerate their growth.
The firm had previously raised around ₹400 crore fund, which marked its final close in February last year. The firm made around 18 investments from the first fund, with an average ticket size of ₹30 crore.
Some of Anicut’s recent investments include Timla Foods, Indian beer brand Bira 91, and digital lending startup Lendingkart.
With the younger Indian startups looking towards debt funding for their growth, there are a number of Indian firms raising debt funds, to invest in the budding Indian startups, to help them grow.
Earlier in September, Unicorn India Ventures roped in Federal Bank as an anchor investor for its maiden ₹600 crore debt fund.
Last month, Alteria Capital marked the second close of its maiden fund at ₹625 crore, which has a target corpus of ₹1,000 crore.