Renuka Ramnath, who recently quit as head of one of India's largest private equity fund ICICI Venture, is setting up a fund with a colleague. Ramnath is starting a general purpose, sector agnostic fund with former ICICI Venture colleague Sudhir Variyar, reports Financial Chronicle. VCCircle has sent a mail to Ramnath to know more details of this development.
Though the fund is yet to register, and it has investments flowing in from some domestic institutions which include a big industrial house, which is expected to provide anchor investment. Ramnath had quit ICICI Venture in April this year after months of speculation. She was replaced by Vishakha Mulye, the executive director of ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company as head of ICICI Venture. Variyar was till now a senior director with ICICI Venture and has also worked with the likes of Fitch Ratings and BPL Communications. The IIM Calcutta passout was with ICICI Venture for more than four years.
Ramnath, who is often referred to as the mother of Indian private equity, joins the senior executives Indian PE industry who have gone to set up their own funds. Ajay Relan, who was till last year head Citigroup Venture Capital International, set up his own fund CX Partners which recently achieved first close of $220 million. Vivek Paul, former vice-chairman of Wipro who quit buyout giant TPG late last year, has formed his own PE firm Akansa Capital which is raising a $300-400 million fund.
Ramnath will joining her former firm ICICI Venture and others like Blue River Capital, Aditya Birla PE, Avigo Capital, Zephyr Peacock, Tano Capital, etc. who are also in the process of raising funds.
