Fulcrum sells part of its stake in Curatio Healthcare to ChrysCapital

The Chennai based Fulcrum, a founder focused private equity firm, has announced that it is making a partial exit from Curatio Healthcare, a leading dermatology products company in India. It is selling a part of its stake to ChrysCapital, a leading India focused investment firm with approximately USD 3 billion of assets under management.

The undisclosed deal amount yields Fulcrum a cash return of 15x on capital invested and an Internal Ratio of Return (IRR) of 40 percent.

For Fulcrum, this is the second partial exit from Curatio. Its first exit from the company was in 2015 when it sold a significant part of its stake to Sequoia. Through its first exit Fulcrum made 6x on capital invested.

Fulcrum picked up a majority stake in Curatio in 2005 as a seed stage investor. With its superior sectoral knowledge and domain expertise, it helped Curatio increase its topline from Rs. 60 crore in 2013 to Rs. 124 crore in 2017 by improving its operations, product quality and productivity.

Commenting on Fulcrum's second partial exit from Curatio, Krishna Ramanathan, its Managing Partner, said, "Fulcrum invests in early growth companies in pharmaceuticals and healthcare sectors with over USD 4 million turnover. The current deal is yet another testament to our approach that remaining sector focused and picking a majority stake in early-growth companies with sound business fundamentals can result in transactions that yield attractive returns".

Fulcrum has invested in over 15 companies with seven successful exits.

This year, Fulcrum has already made two more exits involving Specsmakers, one of south India's largest optical chains, and Manna Foods, a Chennai based Health Foods Company.

The single exit from Specsmakers itself has resulted in 69 percent IRR.

The second exit was from Manna which yielded 38 percent IRR and a 2x in a little over two years. Both exits return 70 percent of the entire fund if full sold.

About its partnership with Fulcrum, G K Ramani, Director, Curatio Healthcare, said "That Fulcrum stays invested since 2005. Its capabilities and a niche sector focus helped us to scale multifold and create significant value for our investors. With Fulcrum divesting and helping us bring Sequoia and ChrysCapital on-board, we can focus on our ambitions of growing into a top dermatology product company in India that provides innovative solutions to our patients".