Vikram Gupta, former chief operating officer of India Venture Advisors, a corporate venturing fund sponsored by India-based healthcare company Piramal Group, has launched a venture capital (VC) fund for entrepreneurs from the country’s educational institutions.
Gupta said on his LinkedIn page that IvyCap Ventures would be launch an innovation and technology VC fund with an approach to focus on the entrepreneurs with high-quality professional educational backgrounds, such as from the India Institutes of Technology.
The fund is targeting $75m, Gupta told news provider VCCircle, which revealed his move.He added by email: "The reason for leaving was the excitement of starting something very unique."
Gupta is an alumnus of IIT Delhi (1989-93) and has created an IIT Alumnus Trust which is an investor in the fund.
The fund is earmarking 5% of the profits (called carried interest) to be distributed among the alma maters of the other investors in the fund, VCCircle added.
Gupta left India Venture Advisors, which raised a R400 crore ($80m) fund in 2007, in February, after a four-year stint where he had managed investments in the healthcare sector. Previously, he was vice-president of strategy and planning at Piramal Healthcare.
India Venture’s first investment deal was to buy 30% of speciality hospital group Kavery Medical Centre and Hospitals (KMC Hospitals) in February 2009 and a year later it bought a stake in C&C Construction.
Piramal was unavailable but Gupta said someone replaced him at the fund, which is headed by AK Purwar@font-face { font-family: “Cambria”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }.