Venture capital firm Sorin Investments to focus on six sectors after raising Rs 1,350 crore maiden fund

The company is in negotiations to lead a Series A round for The Pant Project, a D2C company that sells custom-made pants, with the investment amount to ₹The company is also exploring deals in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) space. Pant Project did not immediately respond to Mint’s request for comment.

Sorin’s key investment areas include, but are not limited to, SaaS, healthtech and consumer internet. “These sectors where we see huge opportunities with quality deal flow and the potential to build large companies will form a large part of our portfolio, but we are not ignoring other sectors,” Mander Dandekar, founding partner at Sorin, told Mint in an interview. Dandekar previously spent a decade at venture capital firms Kalaari Capital and Tata Capital Innovations Fund, where he led investments across sectors and geographies.

Sorin is ₹1,350 crore funds last month, which is usually ₹250 crore from Rs. ₹The company invests Rs 600 crore in Series A and B stage companies. 60% of the funds will be used for new investments and the rest for follow-on rounds. Current investments include Uniqus Consultech, Venwiz, Litestore, Freed, Shivalik SFB, etc. It is also raising a follow-on round with Uniqus.

“We look for fundamental factors like team strength, market size, ability to compete through differentiated business model or technology, sustainability of the model and unit economics,” Dandekar said.

When Sorin launched two years ago, there were a lot of interesting companies and brands emerging and early-stage investment opportunities were plentiful, Sorin founder Sanjay Nayar said. “It made sense for us to start with an early-stage fund, but we intend to do later-stage investments in the long term.”

Nayar previously worked at private equity firm KKR, where he served as CEO and on the board of directors of KKR’s portfolio companies, and has also held senior roles at Citigroup.

During the pandemic, some companies had to rethink their business models and reorient their offerings to be more sustainable in the long term. Building a business takes time, but not all of them were able to generate the revenue that fund managers had hoped for, and some exited with lower than expected profits.

“While it’s too early to think about exit strategies and liquidity, I think founders will realise that not every startup will become a unicorn or reach the ultimate goal of an IPO,” Nayar said.

“Capital will always chase profits, and we think great founders will find a way to create profitable businesses,” said Subir Monga, a partner at Sorin. Monga, who recently joined Sorin, previously worked at ICICI Ventures and Mayfield India for 13 years.

New venture capital funds surge

Several venture capital firms have seen high-profile executives leave recently to start their own funds, with media reports indicating that Nexus Venture’s Sameer Brij Verma, Lightspeed’s Vaibhav Agrawal and Peak XV’s Piyush Gupta are all seeking to start new ventures.

Nayar said the launch of the new fund indicates there is a strong appetite to set up businesses in India using local funds. “Local funds in India are currently just a fraction of the Chinese funds. If we want to become more self-reliant, I think it’s time to cater to domestic talent and needs and tap into local savings,” Nayar said.

Sorin raised 90% of the fund’s capital from India and key limited partners included Nayar Family Office, Banga Family Office, Munjal Family Office and Self Reliant India among others.

Nayar added that the Indian government is also encouraging the growth of the startup ecosystem. “It takes time to build a real business. I think now is the time for us because money is coming in at more reasonable valuations,” he said.

Monga added that as the economy grows and people’s purchasing power increases, India will see more innovative products manufactured at competitive prices and exported to other countries. “We will see more efforts to solve problems for domestic consumers and businesses and more companies catering to the ‘From India to the World’ theme.”