Apr 7, 2023

07 April, 2023 Indian mid-market private equity (PE) firm Amicus Capital Partners, the backer of startups like online insurance platform RenewBuy, Capital Small Finance Bank and Berar Finance, has hit the first close of its second investment vehicle at $75-100 million (Rs600-800 crore), DealStreetAsia has learnt. The PE major is targeting to raise a total of about $200 million for the vehicle to ramp up its investments across fast-growing sectors such as financial services, consumer, healthcare, technology and business services. “Amicus launched its second fund last year and has raked in quite a bit of the capital of the total targeted amount,” a person privy to the development told DealStreetAsia on condition of anonymity. Floated by two industry veterans Sunil Vasudevan and Mahesh Parasuraman, Amicus raised a similar sum of $200 million for its first investment vehicle in 2015. The first fund received the backing of a host of offshore investors from Asia and Europe. While Vasudevan was earlier a partner at homegrown PE giant India Value Fund Advisors, Parasuraman served as the managing director at US-headquartered Carlyle India Advisors. As of date, Amicus has a portfolio of 12 investments. This includes housing finance company Altum Credo Home Finance, work fulfillment platform Awign, caffeine-infused personal care brand mCaffeine, customer analytics and cross-channel engagement platform MoEngage, SME lending startup Namaste Credit, SaaS-based logistics startup Pickrr, and kitchen appliances maker Wonderchef, among others. Amicus clocked its last investment in Rivaara Labs Private, a testing services and R&D-focused molecular diagnostics company, in November 2022. DealStreetAsia has reached out to Amicus Capital for comment. Even as current macro market conditions are prompting limited partners (funds of funds) to tighten their purse strings, there are quite a few established PE and venture capital (VC) firms that are currently on the fundraising trail. These include names such as Xponentia Capital, Rockstud Capital, 8i Ventures, Lighthouse Canton, Investcorp India, and Accel among others. “A lot of these [firms] have been there in the system for quite long and have seen successful cycles of both exits and investments,” said an industry analyst, highlighting how fundraising may become tough, especially for first-time funds. While fundraising witnessed a record $10.5-billion high last year, things may slow down a bit over the next 18-24 months, said experts. “With uncertainty in the market, LPs would want to wait and watch before committing capital yet again. So, the worst affected will be those trying to raise capital for the first time,” the analyst added. The total amount pumped in by LPs into PE and VC fund managers in India in January and February this year stood at $830 million, show data available with Venture Intelligence.