 "Iron Pillar")
Iron Pillar, a venture growth investor, has successfully closed $129 million for the first-ever Series B and C stage fund focused on investing in global cloud software companies from India. This fund is a part of Iron Pillar Fund II series of Funds.
Apart from Iron Pillar’s existing institutional investors from the US, Europe and the Middle East, the fund also saw participation from new investors including two Endowments and a Foundation.
Anand Prasanna, managing partner, Iron Pillar, said that there is no dedicated growth stage fund for software from India, while there is a lot of capital for consumer tech in India. The new initiative would help Indian software firms achieve their potential.
"Iron Pillar is built on a fundamental belief that Indian founders will build large technology companies, not only for India, but also for global markets,” said Prasanna. “The global cloud opportunity is growing at an unprecedented pace, and we believe that Indian founders will continue to build some generational businesses in this space.”
Since its founding in 2016, Iron Pillar has been an active investor in multiple global cloud software companies built from India including Uniphore, Servify, CoreStack, Ushur, Jiffy, Sibros and Pando. This fund will continue to focus on backing companies that are transforming the cloud ecosystem globally, with a strong emphasis on Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud infrastructure across key investment themes such as cyber security and governance, DevOps tools, future of work and education and automation.
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“The cloud ecosystem is rapidly evolving, and we are confident in our ability to help entrepreneurs create market-leading companies in India and around the world," said Mohanjit Jolly, partner, Iron Pillar.
Iron Pillar's global cloud fund’s deployment is led by Prasanna and Jolly.
Over the past 7 years, since Iron Pillar’s inception, the firm has built an impressive track record of backing several break-out companies in cloud software and consumer tech, including Uniphore, Servify, FreshToHome, BlueStone, Skill-Lync and Curefoods. The firm has a unique investment model where it led Series B / C rounds in its portfolio companies and later doubled down on the breakout businesses with 5x to 10x of its initial investment. In addition to capital, Iron Pillar's portfolio companies benefit from the firm's extensive global network, providing access to potential customers, strategic partners, C-suite technology executives and additional sources of capital. The firm currently has nearly $500 million in Assets Under Management (AUM).
According to data from Bain & Company, SaaS companies built from India have generated $12 billion in Annual Recurring Revenue (“ARR”) in 2022, up four times over the past 5 years. They expect that over the next 5 years, Indian SaaS companies will collectively reach $35 billion in ARR and capture 8 per cent of the global SaaS market.
“Iron Pillar is poised to leverage this mega-trend with our latest fund,” said Anand. “Our LPs (limited partners) are excited about the India opportunity.”
