Roots Ventures brings Vijay Shekhar Sharma as the anchor investor

Roots Ventures announced bringing in Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the Founder of Paytm as an anchor investor in its maiden fund. The fund is raising Rs 200 crore with a green shoe option of Rs 100 crore to invest in opportunities arising out of increasing per capita income, changing spending pattern of the consumers and technology disruption around these segments. The anchor investors and partners have contributed 20 per cent to the target fund corpus.

Roots Ventures is an alternative investing platform founded by Japan Vyas who previously set up and was heading the alternatives platform of IDFC Investment Advisors and then was the Co-founder of Sixth Sense Ventures.

"Japan is one of the few investors I know who have had a successful track record for more than a decade picking winners across his funds and business cycles. He is also one of the early shareholders in Paytm when he invested in us from his first fund at IDFC. I am happy to be an investor in his alternative investing platform and wish the team continued success", expressed Vijay Shekhar.

"I am thrilled to have Vijay as one of the anchor investors of our maiden fund. I got to know VSS when I bought into his vision very early on in 2010 and was fortunate to be an early shareholder in One97 (Paytm) through my first fund at IDFC IA. I am glad we have been able to develop a relationship where today he has reposed his trust in us as an anchor LP and we hope it's just the beginning of this leg of our relationship. The fund also counts industry stalwarts like Pravin Gandhi of Seedfund, Sandeep Kohli ex CEO of Yum International for the Indian subcontinent and Kushal and Chaitanya Desai of Apar Industries as its other key investors", said Japan Vyas.

"At Roots, we are building our portfolio around opportunities arising from increasing per capita income, changing consumer spends and impact of technology around these segments. Our portfolio will comprise early stage, growth and small-mid listed investments. Our fundraiser is on track and we are in advance discussions with two fund of funds and looking to close our fundraiser over the next 2-3 months", added Japan Vyas.

Over the last few months since inception, Roots has closed 6 investments ranging across consumer products, consumer tech, and fintech and in the process of closing two more investments in the mobility and consumer space.

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