Mumbai: The Nuvama Group’s private equity arm has invested ₹200 crore for a minority stake in Val-Met Engineering, betting on a specialized supplier of aerospace and defence materials as global manufacturers move more of their high-end production to India.
“Over the last couple of years, there has been a rising focus in India and globally to become more self-reliant. Sensitive sectors like aerospace, defence, industrial and advanced/value added manufacturing have been the biggest beneficiaries of this shift in mindset,” Pranav Parikh, managing partner and head of private equity at Nuvama Asset Management, told Mint in an interview.
According to Parikh, global conflicts and geopolitical uncertainties have made domestic self-sufficiency a critical priority. He noted that Nuvama is currently evaluating additional investment prospects in the sector, having spent the past year identifying resilient businesses positioned to thrive amid these global market disruptions.
The supply chain backlogs and surging demand will allow Val-Met to capitalize on global aerospace leaders shifting their production and assembly hubs to India.
As a critical link in the supply chain of high-growth industries like aerospace, defence and precision manufacturing, Val-Met will play a crucial role in fulfilling demand towards self-fulfillment as well as high value exports from the country, Parikh said. “The opportunity is to further scale this business from an India focused play to a regional and eventually a global play. We will look at acquisitions in Europe and partnerships in Southeast Asia.”
Scaling beyond borders
The fast-growing business has an Ebitda margin of over 20%. “This is a very profitable business, and we expect Val-Met to grow 30%+ CAGR in revenue for the next few years as the industry tailwinds and the capital provides the ability for scale. We anticipate consistent growth from this business given its healthy order book and the sheer number of increased opportunities that have come to India,” Parikh said.
Ebitda is short for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. CAGR is compound annual growth rate.
The Nuvama Crossover Opportunities Fund investment, Val-Met’s first institutional round, will scale its sourcing network, inventory and tech infrastructure while deepening ties with global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers.
Meanwhile, the third fund—about ₹3,600 crore in size—typically involves cheque sizes ranging from ₹150 crore to ₹450 crore. Beyond manufacturing, the firm also invests in other sectors such as consumer and consumer-internet, fintech, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), healthcare and business services.
Historically, its past funds have been backed by domestic investors. However, over time global institutional capital would be a logical step.
Its fourth crossover fund is aiming for a ₹4,000 crore corpus and will target wealthy West Asia investors, as per online reports. “I think the natural evolution is to be able to look at various pools of capital,” Parikh said, without commenting on the specifics.
Broadly, the Nuvama Group oversees ₹4.61 trillion of client assets and caters to a diverse set of clients which includes over 1.3 million affluent and high-net-worth individuals and more than 4,700 of India’s most prosperous families, as of Q3 FY26.
The private equity firm has made investments in industry leaders such as Sudeep Pharma, Course5 Intelligence, Manipal Payments and Identity Solutions, MedPlus, PolyCab, CAMS, Ozone Overseas, Sapphire Foods, Amber and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), among others.
The company offers wealth management solutions, covering investment advisory, estate planning, investment management, lending and broking services for individuals, institutions, CXOs, professional investors and family offices. It also offers a wide bouquet of alternative asset management products and is a leading player in asset services and capital markets.