Leading venture debt firm Stride Ventures has announced the first close of its second fund, Stride Ventures India Fund II, having raised ₹550 crores out of its target corpus of ₹1,000 crores, marking one of the fastest fundraisers of this size in the region. The Stride Ventures India Fund II was launched this June after the start-up had acquired approval from the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
Stride Ventures has a greenshoe option to raise an additional ₹875 crores over the target corpus of ₹1,000 crores.
Stride Ventures is a prominent name in the sector, having invested in late-stage and growth stage start-ups such as Infra.Market, Spinny, HomeLane, SUGAR Cosmetics, Zetwerk, and others. It has disbursed ₹400 crores in 2021 itself through 20 investments. The two-year-old start-up aims to continue working with “exceptional founders and fundamentally strong companies backed by leading venture capitalists,” while simultaneously boosting the deployment in late-stage start-ups across sectors such as B2B Commerce, Healthcare, Agritech, Fintech, and D2C brands with average ticket size up to ₹75 crores.
“The considerable tailwinds seen in the Indian start-up ecosystem present a perfect opportunity to invest in the potential of venture debt in India. With the majority of investors from our maiden fund returning to invest in the new fund, we have had a quicker-than-expected first close. Their confidence remains resolute in our mission to build innovative alternate financing solutions for founders to help scale their start-ups more efficiently,” said Ishpreet Gandhi, founder, and managing partner at Stride Ventures.
Additionally, the investor base of Stride Ventures outside India (in addition to family offices and institutional investors) will be diversified for the fund. “Amid growing investor confidence and a maturing Indian start-up ecosystem, the new fund represents a significant opportunity for the firm to build a robust pipeline of deployments in the coming months,” the start-up said in a statement.
It also aims to announce the final close of the second fund by the end of 2021, raising more than ₹3,000 crores across the tenure of the fund for funding start-ups with its ability to recycle capital.
