Aavishkar VC looks at exposure to pre-school chains

Aavishkar Venture Capital is looking to fund pre-school chains both in India and abroad in a big way, particularly in the rural and under-served areas.
To start with, the fund has invested Rs 4 crore by picking up equity in Nalanda Learning Systems (which runs the Little Laureates pre-school chain).
"The funding will go up to 40 per cent of equity amounting to Rs 50 crore", Managing Director of Aavishkar Venture Management Services Vineet Rai told PTI on the sidelines of TiECon 2014 here today.
"As a step towards impact investing, Aavishkar VC will fund pre-school chains in the rural and under-served areas of the country and abroad", he said.

He said that Aavishkar (funded by corporates, individuals and government agencies like IFC, CDC of UK, KfW of Germany, FMO of Netherlands and Nabard) was already managing funds to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore in India and the first to do impact investing in rural education.
The fund's exposure was already there in healthcare, agriculture and handicrafts, he added.

Rai said the VC was taking execution risks in funding these ventures as pre-school education was still evolving in the country.
Learning from the Indian experience, Aavishkar would now go to countries like Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand, Rai said.
Managing Director and CEO of Nalanda Learning Systems Tamal Mukherjee said at present there were 17 centres in places like rural Patna, Durgapur, Siliguri, Agartala, Krishnagar and Bankura, to name a few.

"We plan to do break even with 50 centres", he said.
Bennett Coleman had also taken equity in the company, he said.