First close of Venture Catalysts-backed Beams Fintech Fund at Rs 270 cr

Beams has a target corpus of $100 million; will primarily back fast-growing fintech firms in their Series B & C rounds

Venture Catalysts-backed Beams Fintech Fund has announced the first close of its growth capital fund for fintech companies at Rs 270 crore ($36 million).

Beams will back growth stage companies operating at the intersection of financial services and technology sectors. It aims to reach the target corpus of $100 million within the next nine months.

The first close saw participation from marquee domestic and International investors including banks, NBFCs, fintechs, family offices and CXOs of financial services companies.Existing investors of Venture Catalysts & 9 Unicorns (first fund from Venture Catalysts) also backed Beams in its first close.

The fund has already begun its innings by investing in millennial-focused neo-bank Niyo last month, alongside Accel and Lightrock India.

Anuj Golecha, co-founder and partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said “It’s remarkable for us to achieve a first close for Beams in just a few months after the official launch. We are building a strong operating team with a deep experience in the Fintech space for the execution of this Growth Stage investing strategy and founders are appreciating the same.”

Beams has already onboarded Navin Surya as the Founding team member of Beams. The Fund has also on-boarded several marquee Partners, Founders, Mentors & Advisors including Deepak Ahuja, Dharmesh Gathani, Ronil Sujan, Rakesh Surana, Suumit Shah, Nakul Beri, Sunil Kulkarni to add value to the portfolio companies. The Fund is in the process of augmenting its investment team with strong Fintech & Financial Services experienced investing professionals.

Sagar Agarvwal, Co-Founder & Partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said, “We are very grateful to our investors for believing in our strategy and our ability to create & build India’s first Growth Stage focused Fintech investing Fund. In Beams, we are building a very unique platform that brings together experienced Founders & Institutions to help & cross-pollinate with our portfolio entrepreneurs on strategy, team building and growth”

Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, co-founder of Beams Fintech Fund, said, “With a strong institutional investor interest in Beams, we aim to back several fast-growing Fintech founders from our Fund 1 and create more than $25-30 Bn in value for the Fintech ecosystem over the next couple of years.”

India has several sector focused growth funds across consumer and health care sectors such as Fireside Ventures, Sixth Sense Venture, DSG Ventures, Healthquad and Quadria. But, the fintech sector has continued its dependence on international money managers such as Ribbit capital, QED, Insight, GGV, General Catalyst and Vitruvian to make growth stage investments in India.