The R50-crore Nasscom promoted early-stage investor India Innovation Fund (IIF) plans to invest at least half of its corpus by the year-end on six deals in the technology and life sciences space.
The firm, which currently has made one investment of R2.5 crore in Mitra Biotech, is all set to close funding of two technology start-ups in the next two to three weeks.
These include a Bangalore-based early stage company in the media technology space and a Mumbai-based technology company operating in the automotive space. ?We are planning about six to seven deals for this year of which two deals will be finalised in the next two to three weeks. This year, we are looking at a total investments of R21-25 crore,? said Ashwin Raguraman, vice-president, India Innovation Fund.
?Normally our average deal size is in the range of R1 to R5 crore in each company, depending on the nature of the business. In case the company needs more, we get co investors,? added Raghuraman.
India Innovation Fund, jointly promoted by Indian IT trade body Nasscom and IKP Knowledge Park, formerly known as ICICI Knowledge Park, is a strategic initiative to fund intellectual property (IP) driven companies in information and communication technologies (ICT) and life sciences sectors in India.
IIF is also targeting a corpus of R100 crore by the end of this year.
The fund has capital commitments from government and corporate majors like TCS, Bharti Airtel and the Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) under a public-private partnership model.
Going forward, the firm also plans to float another fund with international investments.