Eastern Spices gets into private equity

Partners with CapAleph Advisors to set up Rs 125 cr CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund

Meeran Family Trust, run by the promoters of Eastern group, has partnered with Bengaluru-based CapAleph Advisors to set up Rs 125 crore CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund.

The CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund is a domestic private equity fund which aims to invest in early-stage food and agriculture businesses in India.

The Fund will invest up to Rs 15 crore in new ventures in the food and agriculture space, where it will seek significant ownership to help build these businesses with deep operational engagement.

It also has a formal alignment with a few international funds to jointly enter into larger ticket size investments of up to Rs 75 crore, an Eastern group press release said.

The partnership also aims to set up a dedicated accelerator to incubate and support early-stage entrepreneurship in selected ventures in food and agriculture.

A part of the CapAleph Indian Millennium Fund will be reserved for investments into young businesses being incubated by this accelerator.

Navas Meeran, chairman of Eastern Group said the partnership reaffirms Eastern Group's commitment to food and agriculture space.

"This engagement with CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund is a testimony to our family's long-standing commitment to support entrepreneurship in food and agriculture space in India and other relevant markets," he added.

Firoz Meeran, managing director of Eastern Condiments said the Eastern Group's expertise in the food and agriculture space would be valuable for the CapAleph fund.

The CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund is advised by CapAleph Advisors, which was founded by George Thomas.

Thomas has been intimately involved with the food and agriculture space having spent almost half his professional life at Brooke Bond India and later in Hindustan Lever Limited.

He was a Partner at India Value Fund for nearly a decade and served on the Boards of Trinethra Retail (now "More"), Music Broadcast (Radio City), TTK Healthcare Services (Insurance TPA), UEM Ltd. (Environment Management Technologies and Services) , Future Financial Services, Disha Microfinance (Microfinance) and Meru Cabs.

The CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund is targeting a first close by June 2015 with a corpus of between Rs. 50 and Rs. 75 crore and a final close by December 2015.