Wipro Consumer Care-Ventures, the startup investment arm of Wipro’s consumer division, launched its second fund with a Rs 250 crore corpus on Saturday. The fund will continue to focus on investing in consumer startups in India and southeast Asia.
“We would look for e-comm driven companies at Pre-Series A onwards, with minority stake approach (up to 25%), and continue with our strategy of helping and nurturing the startups as required,” said Sumit Keshan, managing partner, Wipro Consumer Care-Ventures.
“Focus would be on companies which operate in categories and sub-categories of personal care, skin care, home care, wellness, food, fragrances, BPC,” he added.
Its first venture capital fund, which had a corpus of Rs 200 crore, was launched about four years ago and has made 10 investments to date. The fund’s multiple on invested capital is running at more than 2.2x with an internal rate of rate above market benchmarks, the company said in a statement.
To date, the firm has made part exits from two of its investments, and in one of them, it has clocked 10x return within a short time. The fund had invested in startups in India, and southeast Asia, as well as in a VC fund.
While a large majority of this fund has been committed, the company still plans to make a couple of new investments and a few follow-ons too.
“While there are current headwinds in the investing space, we feel there is a need for startups to focus on stability and scalability with clear view to profitability,” Keshan added.