IvyCap Ventures, an India-based venture capital firm targeting alumni from the local Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), has raised R65 crore ($12.5m) ahead of a planned first closing at R100 crore.
Vikram Gupta, former head of corporate venturing at India-based healthcare company Piramal, founded IvyCap last year. He said by email the initial commitments had come from four leading Indian financial/government institutions with the alumni from the IITs and other angel investors also joining.
His other colleagues at the firm include Ashish Wadhwani, partner, Norbert Fernandes, co-founder and principal, and Sonia Sharma, vice-president.
The first deal is expected to be in technology to help farmers.
IvyCap also offers a share of any of its profits – called carried interest – from the first fund to the IITs. The 5% carry for the Give Back programme comes from the fund manager’s share of profits but other investors as well as the entrepreneurs are also given the choice to Give Back a small part of their profits to the education system of the country for encouraging incubation level businesses.
Gupta said: "We are seeing tremendous response from investors and entrepreneurs who would like to give back a small part of their profits to their alma maters."
(Editor’s note: This story has been syndicated from the sister website, Global University Venturing.]