How Beams’ fintech-focussed approach helped create two more soonicorns in India

Beams Fintech Fund, India’s first growth-stage fintech fund completed the calendar year 2022 on a high with its portfolio companies NIYO SOLUTIONS and Progcap raising more than $150 million at a combined valuation of over $1 billion.

The fund achieved its first close in March 2022 at $36 million corpus and made two investments during the year. Beams has now crossed more than 50 percent of its target corpus raise of $120 million. What’s more, the fund is also in advanced stages of making three more investments.

Founded by fintech veteran Sagar Agarvwal and Navin Surya, together with founders of Venture Catalysts - Anuj Golecha, Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anil Jain and Gaurav Jain, Beams primarily invests in Series B and C rounds of startups operating at the intersection of financial services and technology.

In a year when most fintech startups struggled to raise capital, both of Beams portfolio companies saw newer rounds from marquee investors. Multiples Private Equity invested in Niyo, while Beams invested alongside Google and Tiger in Progcap.

Beams has built a team of eight investment professionals and more than 10 mentors, advisors and CXOs to help build their portfolio and create tangible value-adds for its portfolio companies.

Beams has also brought in marquee financial institutions as LPs on the fund, including Yes Bank, Infibeams, Capri Global, ECG,etc., to cross pollinate with its portfolio companies.

Beams has also garnered appreciation from the founder community for its strategy of identifying key gaps in the portfolio companies’ accessibility and providing the same in partnership with its LPs. Very similar to Canapi Ventures in the US, Beams will be building the largest ecosystem of banks, NBFIs, insurance companies and DFIs within India and beyond to create value for its companies.

Beams’ portfolio companies also created significant impact in 2022. Its portfolio companies provided access to financial services to over 5 Million Consumers, SME’s and MSMEs with over $1 billion in loans financed and enabled annualised payments of over $1.5 billion for the underserved and blue collar workers.

During 2022, Beams has been recognised as one of the most unique upcoming investors in the Indian fintech space which led to it being invited to multiple global and pan-India events. The fund was also a part of the Global Fintech Fest 2022, which is India’s largest fintech event.

Beams was also a part of the Global LP/GP event, Superreturns at Amsterdam, Singapore and Dubai. Its Managing Partner, Sagar Agarwal was invited to share his views on growth-stage fintech investments in India.

“2022 has been an eventful year at Beams. As a relatively new platform in the ecosystem, creating a category-focussed fund can be interesting at times, especially in a year that was marked by high inflation, geopolitical tensions and cool-off of the tech ecosystem,” said Sagar Agarvwal, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Beams Fintech Fund.

“However, we have been very fortunate to have such high-quality investors support us. We have achieved more than what we had set out to at the start of the year and are proud to be regarded as India’s first growth-stage focussed fintech fund,” he added.

“CY ’23 looks even more promising and positive for us as markets have corrected significantly both in the private and the public space, giving us an opportunity to invest with high quality teams and businesses at more attractive prices and our existing portfolio companies are already performing phenomenally well,” said Navin Surya, Co-founder and Operating Partner, Beams Fintech Fund.

“We expect to close the fund out at a target raise and deploy more than $60-70 million in CY ’23. We follow a thesis-driven approach towards investments and have narrowed down our themes for CY ‘23. These include embedded finance and managed marketplaces, SaaS platforms for banks and FIs, SaaS platforms for enterprises, global enterprises SaaS, open banking, and finally digital financial inclusion,” he added.