Omnivore Partners’ second fund gets $46 million
BENGALURU: Venture capital fund Omnivore Partners has raised $46 million for the first close of its second fund. Investors that participated in the fund include Sidbi, RBL Bank, Sorenson Impact Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF), Ceniarth, and KfW, a German government development bank. The firm is targeting a total of $75 million or Rs 500 crore for its second fund and aims to complete the fund raising by August.
“We are looking to invest in 18 to 20 startups over a 4 to 4.5 year timeline,” Jinesh Shah, cofounder of Omnivore Partners, told ET. “We are on the verge of finalising our first two investments from the second fund by the end of March.”
The firm aims to invest in seed-funded and series-A stage startups in tech-focused firms working in varied agriculture sub sectors, besides food, nutrition, farmer and rural innovation-focused ideas. The farmer-focused innovations can include storage and logistic solutions, farm automation, energy and water solutions, and financial inclusion.
“In our first fund, it was 100% domestic investors,” said Mark Kahn, cofounder of Omnivore Partners. “For the first close of our second fund, we deliberately chose to focus on raising funds from foreign investors. The value add they bring includes defining and measuring impact, focus on environmental and government policies.”
According to Kahn and Shah, the firm will reach out to domestic investors and existing investors for the second half of the fund and expect to see a 50-50 split between domestic and foreign investors. “It takes a longer period of time to invest for foreign investors and for governance reasons, they prefer to be part of the first close of a fund,” added Shah.
In its first fund raise, the company raised Rs 260 crore during 2012 and 2013, and has 12 active portfolio companies from this fund. These include dairy IoT startup Stellapps, weather forecast and solutions provider Skymet, and Ecozen, which provides solar power products for irrigation to farmers. Omnivore has partially exited from both Skymet and Stellapps. According to the firm, over 5.2 million farmers are using the startups’ products and services through its portfolio companies.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes
