MUMBAI: Samara Capital has wrapped up its second fund with the sale of portfolio company SMS Integrated Facility Services to larger peer SILA Solutions Pvt Ltd, backed by Norwest Venture Partners, a top executive at the private equity firm said. The deal values SMS at an enterprise value of close to ₹270 crore.
The exit caps a 2014-vintage fund that delivered a gross internal rate of return of about 25% and returned more than ₹7,500 crore to investors, underscoring Samara’s track record as it seeks to close its third fund in the coming months and taps domestic capital for the first time.
The second fund, raised in 2014 with a corpus of ₹3,000 crore including co-investments from limited partners, made ten investments, all of which generated positive returns, the firm said.
“We could have waited longer to extract significantly higher value, but it is equally important to return capital to our investors in a timely manner while still optimising value,” Anchit Gupta, managing director at the firm, said in an interview. “The Ebitda multiple we achieved is in line with or marginally higher than listed peers and comparable business-to-business companies,” he explained.
Fundraising push
The timing of the exit is significant as Samara works towards closing its third fund over the next two months. Historically, the firm has raised capital largely from overseas investors, but Fund III has also drawn interest from domestic entities.
“Around three years ago, the window for domestic investors in private equity opened up meaningfully for high-quality funds,” he said. “We saw this as a strategic opportunity. These investors, often large family houses with operating businesses, create a powerful flywheel for us across deal flow, ideation, and diligence.”
While Samara’s global fund has completed its final close, the domestic sleeve of Fund III is expected to close by March or April. “We have already been actively investing from both pools of capital over the last few years,” Gupta noted.
Some of Samara's prominent exits from the second fund include the sale of Spoton Logistics to Delhivery; a stake sale in AIG Hospital to Quadria Capital; the sale of Lotus Surgicals to Tube Investments and Premji Invest; and the sale of a stake in Oaknet Healthcare to Eris Lifesciences.
The firm also offloaded stakes in Sahajanand Medical Technologies (SMT) Ltd, First Meridian Business Services Pvt. Ltd and Paradise Food Court Pvt. Ltd through a $150 million continuation fund led by TR Capital in 2023.
Samara invested in the facilities management space in 2017, betting on the formalisation of a fragmented industry dominated by family-run businesses. The firm also saw tailwinds from rising office penetration, increased outsourcing, and the entry of multinational companies, alongside digitization of labour laws.
On the operational front, Samara initially pursued an aggressive consolidation strategy. “Our aim was to aggressively acquire companies in the first 18 months and build one of the largest facilities management platforms in India,” Gupta said. “We diligenced nearly a dozen assets, but the sector was largely unorganised and family-run. In many cases, business quality and earnings were not aligned, so we chose not to pursue acquisitions where standards did not meet our threshold.”
That discipline was tested during the pandemic.
Operational turnaround
Midway through the investment period, the covid-19 pandemic created severe headwinds as clients shifted to remote work and facilities management operations remained dependent on on-site activity. “During covid, our primary focus shifted to staying resilient,” Gupta said. “We were dealing with a nearly 30% decline in revenues, and navigating that period successfully laid the foundation for the recovery and exit we eventually achieved.”
As part of the turnaround, Samara appointed Tarun Ramrakhiani as chief executive in 2021 and repositioned SMS as an engineering-led, technology-enabled platform, introducing new offerings across safety, sustainability, energy management and facilities operations. The firm also hired younger talent and realigned leadership.
SMS now offers housekeeping, security, hospitality and select technical and value-added services. Its acquisition of Awfis Care, the facilities management arm of Awfis Space Solutions, further supported revenue growth. The company competes with players such as Quest Corp, ISS Facility Services, UDS (Updater Services), BVG India Ltd and Compass Group.
Samara ran a broad and competitive sale process for SMS, but strategic buyers emerged as the strongest contenders given operating and scale synergies, Gupta said.
The firm acquired a little over 90% of SMS in 2017 and scaled the business to roughly 2.5x its entry level, with Ebitda tripling over the same period. The company is tracking about ₹700 crore in revenue in the current fiscal year after reporting ₹522.5 crore in revenue and a profit of ₹10 crore in FY25.
SILA, which acquired SMS, was incorporated in 2009 by brothers Sahil Vora and Rushabh Vora and provides facilities management, project management and general contracting services across corporate, industrial, residential and hospitality segments.
The company operates in more than 125 cities and employs over 22,000 people, with revenues of about ₹913.9 crore as of March 2025, according to an Icra report. Historically, SILA has funded acquisitions through promoter capital and equity raised from Norwest Venture Partners, which holds a significant stake in the company.