Info Edge, the India-listed owner of the country’s largest online job portal, Naukri.com, has formed its first corporate venturing fund, Info Edge Venture Fund, according to a stock market filing.
Info Edge has committed Rs 1bn ($14m) to the fund, which will be run by Kitty Agarwal (pictured). It will invest in developers and providers of innovative consumer technology according to the filing.
Info Edge has had great success in its balance sheet investments, which include food delivery and listings service Zomato and ETechAces, the owner of insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar, so far under Agarwal.
Sumit Jaiswal will continue to focus on strategic investments from the company’s balance sheet, and the decision to set up a separate fund could effectively allow external investors to come in, or make it easier to provide incentives such as carry to the team.
Info Edge Venture Fund will pursue financial return, providing between $500,000 and $5m per deal for technology companies that are developing innovative offerings, a spokesperson told VCCircle, adding that Info Edge will continue to conduct direct investments.
The company plans to eventually increase the size of the vehicle but does not intend to raise capital from external limited partners at this time, they added.
As one insider said: “This fund has been launched to provide the team with dedicated resources to make them more agile in making financial investments and better compete with other VCs.
“Incentive structures are yet to be drawn. International expansion would be a strategic call and that would not be within the purview of this fund, but, yes, the fund will be open to invest in both Indian and international startups.”
Several large Indian corporates have primarily preferred to invest from their respective balance sheets, though IT services firm Wipro closed its second corporate venturing fund at $150m earlier this month, to invest primarily outside of India in Silicon Valley, California.
Additional reporting by Liwen-Edison Fu. Photo of Kitty Agarwal courtesy of LinkedIn.
