Formerly called India Value Fund Advisors, the private equity (PE) firm will hitherto be called
True North.Vishal Nevatia, managing partner of True North was quoted as saying,
“Our name has changed but our values remain intact which defines the core values and principles that have moulded the functioning of our company for more than a decade…one of the reasons for this rebranding is that we have a very unique business model whereby we are combining the business nurturing skills of a conglomerate with the sharpness and focus of a private equity group. Nobody has done that before in India, and even globally there are very few examples.”
One of the bigger changes taking place under the rebranding is that the True North will take this opportunity to start investing in companies making technology oriented products and services. The firm is said to have about 500 million dollars in cash reserve from their newest fund with another 500 million dollars in commitment to co-invest.
Nevatia is further quoted as saying, “We will become sector-focused. We decided that it’s better to do few things, but do them best. We feel that India has now evolved so even if we are sector-focused, there are enough things to do. We feel that there is enough depth in sectors. We are adding a fourth sector, which we haven’t looked at in the past—technology product and services. We believe that in the next 10-15 years, 80-90% of our investments will be in these four sectors.”
This signals a shift in PE focus to avant garde technologies like cloud computing, analytics, big data, IoT. Areas of investment usually reserved for venture capital. The private equity sector thinking of investing in emerging technologies may also mean that perhaps it’s time to stop calling these technologies ‘emerging’, and acknowledge them for what they have become: established and essential.
Private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms are similar in methods of creating funds and investing them in companies to realize returns. Often the two terms are used interchangeably. But they are not quite the same. PE will often invest in existing companies who are not performing so well and try to restructure them to make profits. VC takes a bit more risk and would even invest in startups that may not even have a product as yet and try to fashion it into a profitable company. Like how venture capitalists invested in an idea by two young, bearded bohemian men named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack, and the company went on to become Apple Inc.
BW Reporters
Regina is a reporter for BW Businessworld. In her previous assignments, she has worked with Independent television Network as a news anchor and reporter in Sri Lanka
