Eight Roads Ventures, which started its India operations in 2007, will use the fund to put money into 15-20 corporations over three to 4 years, Prem Pavoor, senior associate, head of India and healthcare investments mentioned in an interview on Monday.
“We’re sub section agnostic, stage agnostic and funding dimension agnostic. We’re pleased to make small dimension investments and even development stage ones that can go as much as $40 million,” he mentioned.
The brand new fund will proceed to observe its two-pronged technique for investing in corporations. First is the win-from-behind technique that entails funding in segments established in healthcare that are largely prescribed drugs and healthcare providers. The second technique is to put money into corporations with an goal to construct leaders in segments which might be nonetheless nascent.
“Healthcare has all the time been a key focus for us at Eight Roads globally. About 40-45% of all of our funding have been within the healthcare sector and the stability being in tech, client, fintech and so on.,” mentioned Pavoor.
“The launch of this healthcare fund displays our confidence within the evolution of the India market and our dedication to assist bold founders scale,“ Daniel Auerbach, senior managing Accomplice and head of worldwide ventures at Eight Roads Ventures, mentioned in a press release.
Pavoor defined that when he joined the VC agency in 2008, the healthcare sector had two core themes—prescribed drugs on the generic aspect and healthcare providers masking hospitals and diagnostics. Nevertheless, within the final two to a few years, a number of new themes have change into the mainstay of healthcare reminiscent of digital well being, client well being, self-care, medical units and know-how, level of care units, animal well being, drug discovery and biotech.
This was largely pushed by two most important components—the pandemic and tailwinds from authorities insurance policies such because the Ayushman Bharat, a medical insurance scheme, rolled out in 2019, and the Nationwide Digital Well being Mission (NDHM) floated final yr, he mentioned.
Pavoor mentioned the agency additionally appears to be like at a “differentiation” issue whereas making investments and isn’t hesitant to take a “contrarian” guess that he believes has reaped better returns to this point. For example, in 2012, it invested in Laurus Labs “when virtually nobody was investing within the API (lively pharmaceutical ingredient) area.
Equally, its funding in Cygnus Hospitals was pushed by the workforce’s “new age method“ to construct corporations whilst investments in regional hospital chains have been already occurring. In 2019, media agency Amar Ujala Ltd purchased a majority stake in Cygnus for ₹130 crore and later rebranded it as Ujala Cygnus.
Eight Roads Ventures’ most notable funding in a brand new -age healthcare firm in India is in API Holdings, the guardian of e-pharmacy platform PharmEasy, which is ready for a ₹6,250 crore preliminary share sale. Its different bets within the area embrace client healthcare firm Cipla Well being, injectable drug maker Caplin Steriles, animal well being firm Ashish Life Science, blood plasma merchandise supplier Plasmagen Biosciences, follow administration software program supplier for US dental clinics CareStack and dental aligners Toothsi. It is usually an investor in mobile immunotherapy firm Immuneel Therapeutics, co-founded by Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson and managing director at Biocon. Final month, Eight Roads Ventures led a Collection A funding spherical in Doceree Media India Pvt Ltd, which runs physician-only platform Doceree.
Pavoor additionally mentioned that Eight Roads has expanded its workforce aggressively over the previous 18 months and the tempo will proceed. Its healthcare-focussed funding workforce in India presently contains about 15 members.
Eight Roads has backed greater than 60 corporations in India since 2007. Its non-healthcare bets embrace Icertis, Shadowfax, Whatfix, MoEngage, Quizizz, Chai Level, Early Wage and Securonix.
India has just a few different healthcare-focused personal fairness and enterprise capital funds together with Quadria Capital, InvAscent, Somerset Indus Capital Companions, Tata Capital Healthcare Fund, Asian Healthcare Fund and Alkemi Development Capital.
Supply: Live Mint