Avendus, a financial services firm, has announced the closure of its Future Leaders Fund, which received 584 crore in commitments. Fund I of the firm was launched in 2019 with a total corpus of 374 crore. The second fund aims to raise 750 crore, with a green shoe option to raise an additional 500 crore. The fund has a five-year maturity period with the option to extend it by another two years.

Ritesh Chandra, managing partner, Avendus Future Leaders Fund says, “The idea behind the fund was to be a pool of capital to target market leaders or emerging leaders in a few sectors. We’re focused on three core sectors—digital, consumption and financial services. Idea is to identify leadership assets in these businesses and take equity positions for anywhere between Rs 75-100 crore. We will be investing in 8-10 companies over this time horizon and exiting in 3-4 years.”

According to Chandra, the majority of investors are HNIs and family offices, with a few institutional investors thrown in for good measure. He went on to say, “We believe SaaS is a big opportunity and India has a large role to play in the ecosystem. We are very excited by the B2B SaaS opportunity.”

Chandra further said that the fund is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the Avendus ecosystem's strengths and participate in the value creation journey. He goes on to say that the fund has unrivalled access to marquee businesses as well as deep, long-standing relationships with entrepreneurs.