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YourNest, an early stage venture capital fund, will in next two years focus its energies on identifying nearly 20 deep-tech product companies that could be nurtured into market leaders globally, its Founder & CEO Sunil Goyal said.
These will be portfolio companies for YourNest’s second fund — ₹300 crore YourNest India VC Fund, which was started in January 2017.
It may be recalled that Electronic Development Fund had come in as an anchor investor to this fund, which now has four portfolio companies including Momspresso , Rubique and Uniphore.
“Our big differentiator as YourNest is that we want to nurture global market leaders out of India. We are not just a venture capital fund, we also want to nurture our portfolio companies into global market leaders,” Goyal said.
By December 2020, we aim to have 20 portfolio companies in our second fund and our job for 2019-20 will be to identify such tech-led IP businesses (product companies),” Goyal said.
So far YourNest has two funds — the first being YourNest Angel Fund ( ₹90 crore fund with 16 portfolio companies — started in the year 2012) and the second fund being YourNest India VC fund. The main focus of these two funds is to invest in pre-series A stage of investee companies.
In the first fund, the average investment has been around $0.5 million with valuation ranging between $3 million and $10 million. So far, there have been no exits for YourNest from the first fund. The internal rate of returns has been robust and there is visibility of 40 per cent IRR for this year, according to Goyal. Besides identifying deep-tech product companies, YourNest will this year enable its existing 20 portfolio companies (in both funds) to raise next round of capital.
“Between the 20 existing portfolio companies, as much as $100 million capital is proposed to be raised this year. We will assist them in raising capital,” he said.
YourNest will also focus on spreading awareness among high networth individuals on the benefits of investing in start-ups. “The Alternate Investment Fund guidelines in India are forward looking. Venture capital is going to deliver the best returns among all asset classes. It is doing well and will continue to do well,” Goyal said.
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