Deals RoundUp: Goldman Sachs, Five Star Business Credits, Velvetcase, Sixth Sense Ventures, Sagoon, Motilal Oswal, Mphasis, BlackStone and Paree

Vishal Bakshi Quits Goldman Sachs to Set up PE Business

Vishal Kamalnain Bakshi has quit Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to set up his own private equity business called Avatar Growth Capital Partners, as per DealStreetAsia report. Avatar Growth Capital is a mid-market private equity firm that will look at investing in high-growth companies, one of them said. The size of the fund could not be immediately ascertained. Bakshi, who was a managing director at Goldman Sachs, declined to comment.

Goldman Sachs has been active in India through its private equity as well as real estate investments including a $350 million investment in ReNew Power Ventures Pvt. Ltd, a wind power producer. It has also invested Rs.900 crore in Piramal Realty, the realty arm of the Piramal Group, $250 million in real estate jointly with Nitesh Estates Ltd, $66 million in hospitality firm SAMHI Hotels Pvt. Ltd and $10 million in Azure Hospitality Pvt. Ltd, a pan-Asian casual-dining chain.

Five Star Business Finance Raises Rs 114 Cr from Morgan Stanley Private Equity

Five Star Business Credits, which provides loans to micro entrepreneurs, has raised fresh funding of Rs 114 crore from investment firm Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia, which has now acquired a minority stake in the Chennai-based company, DealStreetAsia reported.

The Matrix Partners-backed venture, registered as a non-banking finance company, plans to increase its loan portfolio by fivefold over the next three years to Rs 1,000 crore. The deal comes at a time when investors are seeing rising potential in the small business lending market, which they expect will grow as large as the microfinance industry.

Five Star plans to grow the loan portfolio by over 50% this year, expand its branch network from 67 to 250 in the next three years and have a presence across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala. Its average loan size is Rs 3 lakhs, with a tenure of up to 7 years and it has 9,000 active customers right now. Five Star has also strengthened its management in the last one year, roping in Asirvad Microfinance's Srikanth G as chief financial officer and Spark Capital's Rangarajan Krishnan as chief operations officer.

Velvetcase Raised Upto $2M From Uniqorn Ventures Fund, Others

Bodhi Brands Pvt. Ltd, the company that owns and operates online jewellery site Velvetcase.com, has raised $1.5-2 million in a second round of funding. The round was led Uniqorn Ventures Fund with participation from a group of angel investors like T.V. Mohandas Pai and S. Somasegar through Letsventure (a crowdsourcing platform). Existing investor The Chennai Angels also participated in the round. The company raised Rs.6 crore in 2014. Mumbai-based Bodhi Brands, founded in 2012 by Kapil Hetamsaria and Runit Shah, aims to use the funds for marketing initiatives, strengthening technology and developing solutions that are seller-centric.

Other companies in the sector include Bluestone Jewellery and Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd. It raised $10 million last year and is looking to raise Rs 200 crore more, according to a June report in Mint.

Sixth Sense Ventures Closes Debut Fund at $18M

Consumer-focused venture capital firm Sixth Sense Ventures – which has already backed five companies – has closed its debut fund at Rs 125 crore ($18.34 million). The VC firm had originally planned to raise Rs 250 crore ($36.7 million) by mid-2014. However, the process was delayed as the VC firm had to alter its private placement memorandum and resubmit its filing with the capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for registration.

Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), several domestic CEOs and high networth investors participated in the fund besides some limited partners (LPs), As reported by DealStreetAsia. Founded in 2014 by Nikhil Vora, Sixth Sense Ventures is planning to invest in 12 startups from this fund as per the new strategy.

Social Network Company Sagoon Looks to Raise Crowdfunding

Social network and eCommerce startup Sagoon with offices in Washington DC and Delhi is looking to raise $ 1.8 million on BankRoll, an equity crowdfunding platform in the USA, as per ET report.

The company will be selling 480,000 unit of shares at $3.75 per share for accredited investors who can invest as little as $5,000.

Sagoon which started as a search engine in 2009 evolved into a social network by 2014 and currently has a registered user base of 255,000.Founded by Govinda Giri, former IT professional with the Pentagon in the US, the network claims to have users from US, India and Nepal.

Motilal Oswal set to raise $300m for Third PE Fund

The private equity investment arm of financial services firm Motilal Oswal is set to raise $250-300 million from overseas investors for a fresh fund to provide growth capital to mid-market companies in the country. The new fund will be the third from the Mumbai-based firm, which has almost fully invested the capital it raised for the previous funds, its top executive said.

"We are in talks and probably within next couple of months, we will be launching our fresh fund," Vishal Tulsyan, CEO of private equity business at Motilal Oswal told ET. "We could deliver decent returns from the previous funds and we believe it's an appropriate time to launch a fresh one."

Mphasis CEO May Co-invest with Blackstone in $1B Deal

Mphasis CEO Ganesh Ayyar may co-invest in his personal capacity with global private equity major Blackstone Group while formalising the acquisition of the Indian IT company, said a Times of India report.

In April, Blackstone had agreed to acquire 60 per cent stake in Mphasis from Hewlett Packard in a $1 billion deal, which is likely to be completed by August. “I know more about Mphasis than the other investments I will be making. So it makes financial sense besides showing commitment,” Ayyar told Times of India. “Discussions will happen now since deal closure means Blackstone will have to pay up. Usually, private equity funds ask the incumbent management if they want to put money along with them.

Sixth Sense Ventures Invests in Noida-based sanitary napkin firm Paree

SSV invests in Noida-based sanitary napkin firm Paree SSV has invested an undisclosed amount in Noida-based sanitary napkin making firm Soothe Healthcare Pvt. Ltd which owns a brand called ‘Paree’. This comes as its first investment after closing the firm’s first fund last week.

Existing investor Saina Nehwal, who has been the brand ambassador for Paree since 2014, also participated in the round as quoted by DealStreetAsia.

Last year in November, she invested an undisclosed amount in the company. According to a Times of India report, the fresh deal amount is around $2 million.