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Sandalwood Capital Partners, the Santa Clara-headquartered venture capital firm is increasing its allocation for India from $120 million to $500 million, according to Mint. The firm also plans to increase the deal sizes from $2-10 million currently to upto $50 million.
This means it will look at investing at growth-stage a la Matrix Partners India, which recently expanded focus to growth and the fund to $450 million. Sandalwood has invested in companies like SemIndia ($10 million), Mumbai-based telecom software company Xalted Information Systems Pvt. Ltd ($5 million) and optical electronics and telecom services company Arasor International Ltd ($2 million).
Increasingly Indian venture funds are looking at growth capital stage since there are lots of opportunities to tap into. Sequoia Capital India was the first to get into growth capital by launching a $400 million fund exclusively for such investments. Its first such investment was $20 million into Cafe Coffee Day. Its other investments include Paras Pharma, Idea Cellular and GVK Biosciences.
Matrix Partners India recently announced expansion of its first fund to $450 million. It will make larger venture greenfield investments as well as growth capital investments.