Growth capital firm Playbook Partners targets 2025 to raise $250 mn fund

Playbook Partners aims to invest in 12-15 companies in two years, with an average ticket size of $20 million

Growth capital firm Playbook Partners, which invests in tech-driven companies, aims to close its $250 million fund by end of this year, said Vikas Choudhury, the firm's managing partner. In September 2024, the firm announced the first close of $130 million and plans to invest in at least six to seven companies by the end of calendar 2025. 

"After our first close, we continued to add more funds and more investors to the fund but have not yet hit $250 million. From an investment point, we have looked at over a hundred opportunities in the growth stages in the country. We are at the advanced stages of making a couple of commitments to investments, but we've not yet deployed or closed that capital out," Choudhury said. 

Playbook Partners has 12 people in the fund, which is quite a 'significant size', according to Choudhury. When asked who are the investors in the latest fund raise, he said the fund saw contribution from marquee global investors and reputed family offices from the Middle East, Europe, the United States, and India. 

With the $250 million fund, Playbook Partners aims to deploy $20 million in 12-15 companies over two years. The firm invests in companies that have a revenue over Rs 100-200 crore, and are margin-positive while being sustainable from operations and viability perspective. It is in talks with companies operating in software-as-a-service (SaaS), logistics, climate, medical devices/equipment, and artificial intelligence (AI). 

Choudhury's portfolio inlcudes companies like Rapido, Myntra, PolicyBazaar, Nazara Technologies and Renee. "At any point in time, we're actively talking to about 10-15 companies, of which one or two companies every month are in advanced stages of closure," Choudhury said, adding that his firm is specifically looking at opportunities in e-commerce, marketplaces, direct-to-consumer (D2C), enablement technologies, and automation of the supply chain, amongst others. 

Choudhury said climate tech is another interesting opportunity for his firm, even though it is still an early-stage play in the country. He said: "We are yet to effectively take up or see scaled companies in that space other than electric vehicles (EVs). The entire ecosystem around EVs - from batteries to financing and sustainable materials is interesting." 

"The three verticals we are most excited about is SaaS but SaaS now has an interesting twist to it which is AI-led SaaS and agenting AI-led services, they are a huge area of growth and opportunity. The second is, vertical SaaS players that solve specialised problems for special industries, and the third is, a combination of SaaS and services," Choudhury explained. 

Talking about the companies in his portfolio that are eyeing an initial public offering (IPO), Choudhury said, "A significant part of our portfolio are companies that are talking about IPOs in the next one to three years. Roughly half of our portfolio is in a steady state. We will expect to deliver IPO exits and therefore, you work backward - that is the kind of companies that we would even look at now."