Avendus and Zodius partner to create a $500 million multi-stage technology fund

Avendus Capital, a financial services firm, through its Alternate Asset Management subsidiary and Zodius Capital, an investor-operator of India-centric technology companies, have decided to partner and invest $400-500 million in emerging leaders in high growth Digital and SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) based Business Services.The targeted Digital Business investments would cover both Internet and Mobile, and areas such as Media, Commerce and Consumer Services. Business Services investments would be focused primarily on SMAC driven IT/BPO opportunities to build new disrupters, or restructure and redirect existing companies toward new high growth market segments. .

The fund Zodius Capital II is a follow-up to the previous fund Zodius Capital I, which focused on accelerated early-stage investments and build-outs in the technology sector. Zodius Capital II will invest primarily in late-stage and pre-IPO companies with an investment strategy which includes:

· Sharp focus on the technology sector

· Shorter investment period of 1+1 years as investors will see pre-identified and cultivated deals and commit funds in three tranches to portfolios of $100-150 million each, making it unique amongst the typical blind pool (post fund raise) strategy followed by most growth funds

· Shorter investment cycle and investor lock-in of 5+2 years as compared with typical growth fund lock-ins of 10+2 years, enabled by the fund’s sharp focus on investing in ’exitable’ assets and a well-defined ‘built-to-list’ program to support the portfolio companies

Speaking about the partnership and Zodius Capital II, Mr. Neeraj Bhargava, Founder and Senior Managing Director of Zodius said “My partners, Gautam Patel, Shilpa Kulkarni and I are delighted to partner with Avendus. Both Avendus and Zodius have unparalleled track records, expertise and network to generate deal flow, develop companies and work with them to a planned exit either through an IPO or a strategic sale. Collectively we are well placed to explore the tremendous opportunity in India centric digital and SMAC businesses.”

Mr. Ranu Vohra, Co-founder, MD & CEO of Avendus Capital added, “We have joined hands at a time when digital and SMAC businesses across the world are eliciting exceptional and rightly deserved investment interest. The IPO surge for digital India centric businesses is just beginning and we expect it to create a very high growth environment in this sector. We are excited about our partnership with Zodius and are sure that given our insights, research and track record in this sector we will be meaningful in this eco system and will be able to give investors access to some promising companies. Avendus also has a strong wealth management business and some of our family office clients have shown strong interest in this product.”