VCCircle

This is an interesting development. Mumbai-based venture capital firm Nexus India Capital has bought out the remaining companies in the portfolio of eVentures India, a troubled VC fund which shut shop in 2003, reports Mint. eVentures was promoted by Japan's SoftBank Corp. and US-based News Corp. The common link between eVentures and Nexus India is Sandeep Singhal. Singhal was earlier a partner with eVentures, while he is currently the co-founder and Managing Director of Nexus.
According to Mint, Nexus has acquired eVentures’ stake in four companies - Netmagic Solutions (hosting and datacentres), Connecturf India (an online advertising), Contests2Win.com (an online contests company) and Games2Win (an online gaming company recently started by Alok Kejriwal of Contests2win; Clearstone Venture Partners has invested $5 million in it).
Nexus has apparently bought the stakes at eVentures's cost price. Nexus had earlier bought eVentures’ stake in mobile services company Mobile2Win India Pvt. Ltd in 2006 (Norwest Venture Capital had also put in money in this company then). Nexus, co-founded by Singhal, Suvir Sujan of ex-Baazee and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Naren Gupta, currently manages a $100 million fund.
At one time, eVentures had a portfolio of 14 companies, totalling an investment of $43 million, says Mint. Some six of them were either shut down or sold back to promoters. Singhal had personally bought eVentures' stake in online travel company MakeMyTrip, which he flipped to SAIF Partners. It exited some companies like CustomerAsset.com (acquired by ICICI OneSource), Integma Holdings (acquired by Emptoris, Inc.) and Mentorix Technologies Inc. (acquired by Lionbridge Technologies Inc.).
This is the first time one VC fund buying another VC's portfolio lock stock and barrel. However, secondary transactions have happened in the Indian private equity market earlier. Last year, Coller Capital bought out the stakes of some of the limited partners in ICICI Venture India Advantage Fund for $35 million. Some of the limited partners in UTI Ventures have also sold their stakes to other investors at a higher price. And there has been a merger too - WestBridge Capital Partners with Sequoia Capital to form Sequoia Capital India.