Helion Venture Partners has closed its second fund with a corpus of $210 million

Helion Venture Partners has closed its second fund with a corpus of $210 million (Rs850.5 crore), 1.5 times more than its first fund of $140 million that has more than half been distributed among a dozen companies.
The Bangalore-based firm is the first among a growing bunch of venture capital (VC) firms in India that focus on early-stage businesses to raise a second fund in as many years. “We wanted to create an extra pool of capital to expand our focus beyond technology powered businesses,” said Kanwaljit Singh, the firm’s managing director.
Until now, Helion has invested primarily in companies running businesses in the Internet, wireless and outsourced services space, such as online travel company Makemytrip India Pvt. Ltd, online ad publishing network Komli Inc., voice short message service provider Kirusa Inc. and IT-enabled services firm Anantara Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
It will next also look at investments in consumer-oriented sectors such as retail and financial services.
Helion, which typically invests between $2 million and $10 million in a company, will continue to participate in early-stage deals, Singh said.
In addition to Helion’s existing limited partners (institutions which invest in private equity funds), who are mostly based in the US, the firm has been backed by new partners in Asia and Europe for its latest fund. The firm also says it wants to expand its reach into these geographies to help its portfolio companies, especially those in outsourced services that address these markets.
Helion is among the new breed of venture capital firms in India formed by partners with operational and entrepreneurial background—Singh earlier handled marketing at Intel Corp. and Unilever Plc., while his partners Ashish Gupta and Sanjeev Aggarwal had co-founded start-ups before. A fourth partner, Rahul Chandra, comes from a pure VC background.

Via-Mint