Kotak Alt Marks First Close Of Its Life Sciences Fund At INR 250 Cr

Kotal Alternate Asset Managers (Kotak Alt), has made the first close of its life sciences fund at INR 250 Cr (around $29 Mn).

The fund, with a target corpus of INR 1,600 Cr (around $185 Mn), has seen participation from family offices, UHNIs (ultra high net worth individuals), industry veterans and other institutions.

The fund will invest in early to growth stage startups operating in the life sciences space which includes medical devices, digital health, consumer wellness, diagnostics and delivery, Kotak Alt said in a statement.

In the past two years, the Kotak Mahindra Group’s alternative assets management entity has invested a total of INR 4,000 Cr in the healthcare sector. Along with financial backing, it also aims to lend support to selected startups in differentiating themselves from other players in the market.

“Life sciences is a core sector where the firm deploys capital across the lifecycle of the company i.e. early, growth and late stage,” said Ashish Ranjan, director private equity at Kotak Alt.

Founded in 2005, Kotak Alt claims to have raised and managed a total of over $22 Bn across various asset classes such as private equity, real estate, infrastructure, special situations, private credit and investment advisory.

In September last year, the investment firm backed D2C nutrition startup Nutrabay which raised $5 Mn and also participated in the $5 Mn Series A funding round of Biotech startup Ahammune Biosciences.

Kotak Alt’s healthcare and life sciences fund was incorporated in 2018 and till date it has made a total of 19 investments through that fund, according to its website.

The development comes close on the heels of many venture capital firms marking close of their  funds in the recent past.

Two days back, Bharat Value Fund announced the first close of its third investment fund at INR 1,250 Cr with a target corpus of INR 2,500 Cr to back resilient and asset backed businesses in multiple sectors.

Early this week it was reported that Sify Technologies is aiming to invest $5 Bn in India over a period of five years to build smaller AI inferencing facilities in 20 tier-II cities.

Moreover, last week Cornerstone Ventures also announced the first close of its second fund, which has a target corpus of $200 Mn, at about $40 Mn to back innovative B2B technology startups.

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