Unicap Advisory floats Rs 200-cr MSME fund

Sectors on radar are IT, ITeS, logistics

Unicap Venture Fund, a unit of mid-market financial advisory firm Unicap Advisory, has floated a fund with a corpus of Rs 200 crore for making investments in small and micro enterprises.

The fund, which is in resource raising mode, will be sector-agnostic fund focused on asset-light micro and small companies. The sectors it would look at includes infotech,  information technology-enabled services (ITeS), logistics, ancillaries, service-oriented companies, media-related companies, import/export enterprises.

The fund does not have a mandate to invest in real estate and would follow regulatory norms prescribed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

Sagar Khurana, director, Unicap Advisory, said the domestic fund would target high networth individuals (those who can invest at least Rs 2  crore or beyond) and fund of funds.

“The fund will start writing cheques (for investment) when it hits first close.  The target is to raise about Rs 50 crore in the first round by February-March 2014,” he said. The company has already received commitments of Rs 20 crore.

The Delhi-based fund would have a life of five-six years. The ticket size for investment would be in the range of Rs 2-5 crore. While looking at investment, the fund will look at idea (business proposition) with potential valuation of Rs 10 crore and above in three years.

Raising capital in the current economic scenario is a challenge for MSMEs, as the PE players look for significant-sized companies. On the other hand, banks and debt lenders require collaterals. The Unicap fund will offer customised solutions to such MSMEs, by bridging this gap of capital for requirement by investing equity/mezzanine capital, he said.