Mirae’s $39m India-Focus Fund, Early-stage Startups can Count on

With the launch of an India-dedicated fund, South Korean financial services company Mirae Asset group is betting on early-stage Indian startups. Mirae Asset Venture Opportunity Fund 1, with a corpus of $35 million dollar (Rs. 256 crore) and an option to take it up to $75 million, will cut cheques for seed an Series-A financing rounds, as it eyes an early entry into fledging tech companies locally. The fund will operate independently as decision making will lie with the Indian team helmed by Ashish Dave, who has also been overseeing the firm’s growth investments here through Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund which has a corpus of more than $1 billion.

South Korea and China are the only two other countries where Mirae’s operates a country-focus early-stage fund. With its global fund being active in India over the past two years Mirae has been bullish on Indian technology having already deployed $200 million across Ola, BigBasket Zomato and Shadowfax among others.The clampdown on Chinese capital into India has also bolstered the likes of Mirae to build a long term plan for Indian tech investments. For now, Mirae Asset Venture’s only limited partner or sponsor is Mirae Asset group.

While the newly launched India fund will invest in early-stage startups, the growth-stage bets would continue to be made through its global corpus. Dave, chief executive of of Mirae Asset Venture Investments said anything beyond $10 million will be routed through Mirae’s global growth fund while confiring gthe development.

Dave said, “ Our growth fund invests a minimum $10 million in assets due to which we missed out a lot of early opportunities wanted to raise small amounts. fund were companies wanted to raise smaller amounts. Further, since there is a global investment committee process, it takes some time to arrive at a decision. The India fund will us flexibility to get in early in some of these deals as the decision-making is local and quick.

Early-stage deal activity in India has seen a lot of momentum over the past few years, with most venture funds wanting to get a bigger slice of startups right at the beginning so that they have significant ownership at a lower valuation. Mirae Asset Venture will invest $1-5 million dollar over the next 12-18 months in India fintech, consumer internet, and software as an internet firms.

Dave added “Apart from leading rounds, we will work with some funds closely and co-invest alongside them. We also have our Koreans partners who will be investing alongside us. Investment size will be around $2-4 million for seed to Series A opportunities’’.

Dave said commenting on Mirae’s current India investments, “Our portfolio companies have fared well and are adequately capitalised for next 2-3 years at least. In fact, companies like BigBasket, Shadowfax and Zomato have benefitted significantly due to the increased digital adoption.’’  As for exits and IPOs in 2021 for India tech companies, Dave said that there were at least 5-6 companies, which would go public paving the way for liquidity in the Indian market.