Companies
Manipal’s Ranjan Pai to invest in Atul Gupta’s $250 mln fund
Summary
- Trident’s first-ever fund has received commitments from several other investors
- The fund will invest in consumer, financial services, software & tech, and healthcare
Bengaluru: Manipal group chairman Ranjan Pai is likely to invest in the $200-$250 million fund of Trident Growth Partners, an investment firm founded by former Premji Invest partner Atul Gupta, two people familiar with the matter told Mint.
Trident’s first-ever fund has already received commitments from various other investors. “The discussions are still in a preliminary stage and not much has been decided yet," one of the people cited above said.
The fund will typically focus on growth-stage companies and invest across multiple sectors, including consumer, financial services, enterprise software and technology, industrial and manufacturing, and healthcare.
While Gupta did not respond to Mint’s request for comment, Ranjan Pai declined to comment.
Besides Gupta, Rajesh Ramaiah and Pravan Malhotra are also part of the founding team of Trident.
Gupta, who announced the fund in July, brings a wealth of experience in overseeing some of India’s most renowned startups.
Gupta, during his 15-year tenure at Premji, contributed to the growth of startups such as Lenskart, Policybazaar, Myntra, Flipkart, Purplle, FirstCry and Snapdeal, as per his latest post on social networking platform LinkedIn last month.
Gupta aims to leverage his expertise in his new venture with several of these companies which are unicorns (or a startup with a billion-dollar valuation), publicly listed companies or are well on their way.
Meanwhile, Ranjan Pai, chairman of Manipal Group, actively invests in the new age and digital economy and is seen as a saviour for struggling startups such as Byju’s and Pharmeasy among other investments.
“We have invested a lot in the Indian startup ecosystem. We believe that the kind of quality of entrepreneurs that are coming out of the Indian ecosystem is very promising and we will look at continuing to invest in the ecosystem," Pai told Mint in an interview last year. Besides investment in funds, Pai added that there will be direct transactions as well.
To that effect, Pai’s family office Claypond Capital is also in the midst of assembling a full-fledged professional team to capitalize on attractive valuations, and back promising startups as the Manipal executive looks to sharpen his investments, according to an Economic Times report from last year.
Also Read: Ranjan Pai turned saviour for Aakash; so why are investors upset?
