Norwest Venture Partners announces closure of $3 bn fund NVP XVI

Total capital under management at $12.5 bn; last fund NVP XV was raised in 2019 with a corpus of $2 bn

Norwest Venture Partners, a global venture capital and growth equity investment firm, announced that it has closed NVP XVI, a $3 billion venture and growth equity fund, bringing its total capital under management to $12.5 billion. This is also its largest fund raise.

Norwest Venture Partners India has been an early believer in the India story. Some of its investments in India include Cholamandalam Finance, IndusInd Bank, Duroflex, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Mensa, SK Finance, XpressBee, NSE, Pepperfry, Quikr, Thyrocare, Swiggy and RBL Bank.

While India does not have a dedicated fund allocated as Norwest has a one global fund approach as it invests across geographies, Niren Shah, managing director and head of Norwest Venture Partners India told Business Standard: "The average ticket size continuous to grow. We will continue to focus on Late Stage Venture and Growth Equity Investments. In addition, we have also started focusing on Early to Mid-stage investments in India.”

The last fund NVP XV was raised in 2019 (November) with a corpus of $2 billion and saw the VC firm invest in more than 60 new global investments in companies including Mensa Brands, Ummeed Housing, XpressBees Logistics, Amagi, Duroflex and Vastu Housing in India. Prior to this fund, Norwest raised NVP XIV with a corpus of $1.5 billion in 2018.

Over the same period the firm has also had 29 global liquidity events including partial exits such as Five Star Business Finance, Swiggy and full exits from Kotak Bank and NSE.

Shah believes that Indian startup ecosystem has reached a multi-decadal growth cycle and in the next 10 years India will see companies coming on to the global stage from the tech ecosystem.

“Our dedication to responsible investing means that we are still investing for outcomes that will create the most success for our founders. We are formalizing our long-standing commitment to investing in companies that care about sustainability, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion and are turning up the volume on what we’ve been doing for years - investing in companies with strong ESG practices,” he added.

Norwest’s multi billion dollar comes at a times when US based VC firms have raised a record amount of funds. According to a Reuters report, in the first 11 months of 2021, US venture capital firms have raised a record $305 billion, compared to $167 billion in 2020. Earlier this year Tiger Global had raised the biggest fund at $6.65 billion.

Norwest’s India bets

Some current investments:

Swiggy, OfBusiness, Fivestar Financr, Mensa Brands, Pepperfry, S K Finance, Amagi media, Xpressbees Logisitics, Duroflex, etc.

Liquidity opportunities:

• Exits Include IPOs such as Persistent systems, RBL bank Snowman Logistics, Yatra, Chola Finance, Thyrocare.
• NVP has also had significant exits in Elastic run, Zenoti, Capillary.
• Upcoming IPOs include Five Star Finance.