Alteria Capital announces Fund II with target corpus of Rs 1,000 Cr

Debt fund Alteria Capital announced it is raising its second venture debt, Alteria Capital Fund II, and is targeting a Rs 1,000 crore corpus with an additional green-shoe of Rs. 750 crore. It also has expanded its partnership team by adding experienced venture debt professionals Ankit Agarwal and Punit Shah.

"Adding two high calibre partners like Ankit and Punit will enable us to collaborate, identify and act more effectively against a rapidly growing market opportunity,” said Ajay Hattangdi, Co-founder and Managing Partner, in a statement.

Promoted by Ajay and Vinod Murali, Fund II will look at deploying the capital to back startups that have already raised VC funding and provide them with a range of speciality debt solutions. The fund will target startups across early and growth stages with cheque sizes up to Rs 150 crore. The new fund has obtained approvals from SEBI and is expected to have a First Close in H1 2021.

Vinod, Co-founder and Managing Partner, said “There is a growing appreciation for the venture debt asset class among Indian LPs who have seen strong performance despite COVID-19. This is a dislocated asset class with low correlation to listed stocks or bonds and hence provides a good hedge as part of their asset allocation”.

ALSO READ

How to manage capital in crises? Hear it from one of India’s large startup venture lenders

There will also be an allocation for structured debt products aimed at later stage companies that have a differentiated risk profile.

Fund I has a corpus of Rs 962 crore and has backed companies like Dunzo, Lendingkart, Rebel Foods, Portea, Spinnzy, Vogo Automotive, mfine, Loadshare, Country Delight, CropIn, Nua, DaMENSCH, Faces Cosmetics, and Universal Sportsbiz to name a few.

Ankit Agarwal, Partner said, “Sharp rise of the Venture Debt Asset class over the last few years is a reflection of the fundamental strength of ventures getting built in India. The ecosystem has vastly improved with repeat founders, smarter capital and better digital adoption overall.”

Alteria Capital Fund II will be the largest pool of alternative debt capital available for early and growth stage startups in India. With its ability to recycle capital, Alteria will effectively have over Rs 4,000 crore available for funding startups across venture debt and structured solutions.

Punit Shah, Partner, said “Venture Debt has evolved over the years with founders and investors having an increasing appreciation for the role played by this asset class through a company's lifecycle. In the next few years, venture debt in India will gradually catch up to global benchmarks and capture a larger pie of all early stage capital”.