Bengaluru-based mid-market private equity fund Amicus Capital, which counts RenewBuy, MoEngage and mCaffeine among its portfolio firms, has marked the first close of its second domestic fund at $146 million, a month after the asset manager roped in a new limited partner for the latest vehicle.
The fund has a target corpus of around $200 million and the investor aims to seal the final close of the fund later in 2024, as per a press statement. The development also marked first milestone achieved by any homegrown PE fund in the current year.
VCCircle had reported last December that European Investment Bank had committed around $40 million for the second fund. It had, however, mulled an initial investment of $30 million.
Among the prominent investors participating in Fund II are US International Development Finance Corporation, Self-Reliant India (SRI) Fund, HDFC Fund of Funds, large domestic insurance companies & financial institutions, family offices and HNIs from across the world.
"The fund is looking to back middle market entrepreneurs across sectors who have the drive, passion, energy, integrity and zeal to create capital efficient, profitable and market leading businesses," said Mahesh Parasuraman, co-founder and partner at Amicus Capital.
The fund will typically look to invest $10-30 million each in 10-12 middle market companies across five key sectors – financial services, consumer, healthcare, technology & business services, and specialty manufacturing.
Digitalisation and market access (penetration across tier-II cities and beyond) are two key investment themes of the fund, the statement added.
Amicus Capital was launched in 2015 by Mahesh Parasuraman, a former managing director at US-based private equity firm Carlyle Group, and Sunil Vasudevan, a former partner at India-based PE True North.
Its first fund closed at around $88 million (Rs 625 crore). It deployed the money in nine companies including insurance aggregator platform RenewBuy, Capital Small Finance Bank, consumer appliance firm Wonderchef, vehicle financier Berar Finance and personal care firm mCaffeine.
It also invested in lender Namaste Credit, tech-enabled logistics services provider Pickrr, customer engagement platform MoEngage and home financier Altum Credo.
Some of the investments routed through the new fund include work fulfilment platform Awign, molecular diagnostics firm Rivaara Labs and a highly scaled-up manufacturing platform Aequs.