Evolvence Launches India FoF

Evolvence Capital is founding the first Fund of Funds for India, according to Jay Jaganathan a GP with the newly announced Evolvence India Fund (EIF), which has a target of about $250 million.

Jaganathan, who has spent the last 15 years working in private equity in the Middle East, joined Evolvence in 2001 as a consultant. He will head up EIF. He began fund-raising last month and expects a first close of about $50 million by June, Jaganathan tells PE Week in an exclusive interview. He says he’s raising the funds from Middle Eastern LPs and has no projected date for the fund’s final close.

EIF will focus on investments with India.

Evolvence Capital is a private equity investment firm that invests in private equity, real estate and hedge funds. Khaled Al-Muhairy, a former portfolio manager with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, founded the firm in Dubai, India in 2001 with money raised from shareholders of 10 high net worth families in the Gulf Corporation Council. Evolvence Capital manages about $700 million in assets.

The new FoF will operate from two offices, one in New Delhi and another in Dubai, that belong to Evolvence and First Capital, which is the investment arm of the Dalmia family of India. Evolvence and First Capital have the right to contribute as much as 5% into EIF’s final capitalization.

EIF will invest 60% of the funds it raises with primary fund managers and the remaining 40% will be co-invested. Jaganathan says that EIF will have a team of seven investment professionals and invest with no investment stage or sector restrictions beyond the requirement that the firm will not invest in companies that are involved in gambling, alcohol or arms and ammunition.

EIF is interested in co-investments targeting late-stage growth capital and in PIPES.