Venture debt firm Stride Ventures, an investor in unicorns such as MyGlamm, Upstox, MensaBrands, and CredAvenue (now Yubi), on Wednesday announced that its second fund has secured a final close of $200 million.
The fund — Stride Ventures India Fund II — secured its first close of Rs550 crore in August last year within two months of launch, making it one of the fastest fundraisings of this size in the region.
Similar to the first fund, the second fund witnessed participation from leading banks, marquee family offices, corporate treasuries, sovereign funds, PE funds, insurance firms, and HNIs, the venture debt firm said in a statement.
The firm has sanctioned over Rs1,600 crore in 70+ companies across consumer, fintech, agritech, B2B commerce, healthtech, B2B SaaS, mobility and energy solutions (EV).
Its portfolio companies include Zepto, BluSmart, Uni, WayCool, MediBuddy, Wiz Freight, Perfios, and Groyyo.
“The growing investor trust in the Indian startup ecosystem provided us with a great opportunity to develop a strong pipeline of deployments that we have utilised across various sectors. Stride Ventures has already committed a large portion of the fund to industry-leading startups and our goal is to continue being a preferred lender while developing innovative alternate financing solutions for founders,” said founder and managing partner of Stride Ventures, Ishpreet Singh Gandhi.
“The current economic environment has made growing businesses more amenable to debt transactions than ever before, giving India’s venture lending industry a chance to grow and evolve,” added Apoorva Sharma, Partner, Stride Ventures.
Demand for venture debt in the country has risen over the past 2-3 years as startup founders are seeing it as a favourable option to meet their working capital needs. To meet this growing demand, many firms have launched debt vehicles in the past few months.
This May, Black Soil announced that it has raised $23.2 million through non-convertible debentures (NCDs), bank debt & other instruments, to fund mid and growth-stage enterprises in the startup ecosystem.
In March, Vivriti Asset Management reached the final close of its second debt fund at about $46 million. The same month, Eight Capital Management’s Ravi Chachra and Vijay Lavhale launched 8vdX, a $75-million venture debt firm for early-stage startups.
Anicut Capital, too, hit the final close of its second debt fund at $118 million in January.
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