Seed-stage fund Prime Venture Partners raises Rs 4 bn in third fund

The firm typically invests about $1 mn in the initial round and reserves $2-4 mn for follow-on rounds

Prime Venture Partners, a seed-stage fund, has announced the close of its third fund at Rs 4 billion ($60 million). 

The company would continue to focus on investment opportunities in financial technology (fintech), SaaS (software as a service), and health care, Shripati Acharya, co-founder and managing partner, Prime Venture Partners, said on Wednesday.

The investment firm, formerly known as Angel Prime, had raised its first fund worth $8 million in 2012, and second fund of $46 million in 2015. Through the second fund, the company has made 10 investments so far. 

The firm typically invests about $1 million in the initial round and reserves $2-4 million for follow-on rounds. “The entire $46 million Fund 2 is committed,” Sanjay Swamy, co-founder and managing partner at the firm, said, adding it was going to follow the same model for the third fund as well.

Apart from fintech, SaaS, and health care, Prime Venture was also looking at emerging areas like wealth management and insurance, Swamy said.

Continuing with the previous model, the company would be investing $3.5-4 million in seed cheque and series A funding for each company, said Amit Somani, managing partner.

Prime Venture was the first investor in ZipDial, a missed-call based start-up that was acquired by Twitter in 2015, and Ezetap, a mobile payments company that has since raised about $50 million in follow-on capital and is a leading provider of enterprise-grade payment acceptance solutions in India. 

Most of the companies Prime has invested in have gone on to raise strong follow-on rounds of investment from other venture capital firms in India, Silicon Valley, and Asia.

All the existing limited partners and some new ones participated in the third fund, said Somani.