Foundation PE acquires 100 pc of LP interests in Prime Venture Partners’ first fund

Foundation Private Equity, a provider of bespoke secondary solutions across Asia, and Prime Venture Partners, an early-stage India-focused VC fund, announced today that FPE has acquired all the LP interests in Prime VP’s Fund 1 via a LP tender offer process.

Prime VP’s Fund 1 is a Mauritius-based fund and the first investor in seven companies, including edtech startup Quizizz and fintech startup Happay (recently acquired by CRED). With this development, Prime VP has delivered a healthy, top decile return to its Limited Partners in its ninth year of operation and has further extended the fund by four years.

Singapore based Candor Asia Advisors Pte Ltd., a specialist in complex secondaries and GP-led deals, was the sole advisor to this transaction.

With this fund extension, FPE now becomes the sole LP in Prime VP’s first fund, which was originally raised in 2012. The companies under this fund include:

Quizziz: An interactive learning startup used by teachers in 120 countries, it has more than 100 million monthly active users. It is backed by marquee investors such as Tiger Global and Yahoo Co-founder Jerry Yang.

Happay: The business expense, payments, and travel management platform serves more than 6,000 businesses. It manages work-related expenses of more than one million users globally, who spend nearly $1 billion annually. Happay was recently acquired by CRED for $180 million in a cash plus stock transaction.

Waggle: The solutions offered by this US-based pet tech company include innovative pet sensors and wearables and the industry's first cloud-based mobile app that serves as a one-stop solution for pet health, safety, and fitness.

HackerEarth: A solutions provider to source, assess, upskill, and engage software developer talent, it recently recorded a 144 percent increase in its revenue growth in India and a 185 percent growth in the US.

Synup: This digital profile management and customer experience optimisation solution for businesses is used by thousands of companies to drive better business results. Synup is headquartered in New York City with operations in APAC, EMEA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

SmartOwner: A property investment management marketplace company based in India.

Vidgyor: An adtech platform currently working with more than 60 TV broadcasters, content owners, and OTT platforms, it provides technology solutions to manage and monetise live and VoD content and to reach audiences regionally and globally.

Prime Venture Partners is an India-focused early stage firm started in 2012 with an Indian advisory office led by Shripati Acharya, Sanjay Swamy, Bala Parthasarathy, and Amit Somani.

With a view to bringing Silicon Valley-style professionalism to venture investing, Prime VP’s mission is to partner early with entrepreneurs and help build world-class technology companies addressing some of India’s most important problems.

Sanjay Swamy, Co-Founder ànd Managing Partner, Priven Advisors, Advisory to Prime Venture Partners, said, "Ensuring founders have the opportunity to build their businesses to their full potential, while providing meaningful returns to our Limited Partners, is what the Prime VP team strives for as advisors. This event is a validation of the ‘concentrated portfolio with active support’ strategy that has defined our approach from Day Zero.

"We were extremely happy with FPE’s approach to understanding the nuances and motivations of early-stage entrepreneurs. We’re also very appreciative of the work done by Soma Ghosal Dhar at CandorAsia in helping orchestrate a smooth process for all parties involved.”

Foundation Private Equity, started by industry veterans Jason Sambanju and Jeremy Foo, was formed in 2017 with a mission to provide innovative solutions to Limited Partners and General Partners at all points of their fund life cycle.

Jeremy Foo, Co-Founder and Partner, Foundation Private Equity, said, "We are very pleased to have worked closely with the team at Prime Venture Partners to identify and execute an optimal liquidity solution for their existing LPs. The FPE team has taken a patient approach thus far with evaluating venture opportunities in India, and we are excited to be backing a very high-quality GP team and portfolio with our first transaction in India. We have strong conviction in the value that Prime VP brings to their investee companies, and are excited about the journey ahead."

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'The first institutional investor'

Prime VP has raised four funds since its inception and manages more than $250 million with investors, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group and a top-tier university endowment, several family offices and institutions, and numerous global technology entrepreneurs.

Jay Zaveri, Partner, Discover at Social Capital, said, “India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. One of the best ways to unlock the value of India’s entrepreneurial spirit is to back founders just as they are getting started. Social Capital anchored the first fund of Prime Venture Partners to tap these early stage opportunities and we are excited to see them come to fruition. We look forward to seeing what these entrepreneurs achieve in the years ahead with the Foundation PE team.”

Currently in its Fund IV of $100 million, Prime VP is typically the first institutional investor and focuses on companies with an innovative approach to solving fundamental problems through technology.

Soma Ghosal Dhar, Managing Director Candor Asia Advisors Pte. Ltd, said, “Such secondary restructurings offer a powerful second wind to high quality portfolios managed by pedigreed GPs, while also providing much needed liquidity at attractive return multiples to patient LPs.”