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Nilekani, Helion’s Sanjeev Aggarwal to float $100-mn VC fund

By Dearton Thomas Hector

  • 24 Mar 2017
Nilekani, Helion’s Sanjeev Aggarwal to float $100-mn VC fund

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and Helion Venture Partners’ co-founder Sanjeev Aggarwal are joining hands to set up a $100-million (Rs 655 crore) venture capital fund focusing on mid-stage startups, a business daily reported on Friday.

Citing anonymous sources, The Economic Times said the fund will primarily consist of personal capital pooled in by technology titans while the rest will come from friends and family.

Nandan Nilekani
Calls and messages to Nilekani and Aggarwal seeking confirmation went unanswered at the time of filing this article.

The report also said that Nilekani and Aggarwal will likely contribute 30-40% of the initial corpus of at least $100 million, and the fund will write $10-15 million cheques for startups.

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Nilekani has been an active investor, usually putting in $1-2 million in each startup he backs. He has invested in firms across sectors, including aerospace startup Team Indus, telecom startup Mubble, publishing startup Juggernaut, online fundraising platform LetsVenture and logistics startup Fortigo. The key architect of the government's Aadhar project, Nilekani has also contested Lok Sabha elections and is an active philanthropist too.

Nandan Nilekani
Agarwal, who oversees a corpus of over $600 million at Helion Venture Partners, has backed companies such as MakeMyTrip, BigBasket and ShopClues in the past. It is not clear whether he will quit Helion for setting up the VC firm.

Five months ago, Nilekani and Helion had invested in Noida-based Stelling Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs RailYatri.in, a platform that gives railways-related information.

About a year ago, three partners at Helion had quit to set up a VC firm called Stellaris Venture Partners.

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