SRI Capital to raise $60 million in three months

Hyderabad : SRI Capital, a leading early stage Venture Capital fund focussed on US/Indian start-ups, plans to raise $60 million in three months for its $100 million Fund, said company founder and Managing Director Sashi Reddy on Thursday.

A US registered early stage VC based in Philadelphia, SRI Capital has already raised $40 million for the fund launched in January this year.

SRI Capital Fund-I invests in early stage tech start-ups that target the US enterprise market or the Indian consumer market.

He told reporters that Jay Krishnan, who recently quit as Chief Executive Officer of T-Hub, has joined as partner in SRI Capital.

Based in Hyderabad, Jay will look after the deals out of India. He, however, is making no investment.

SRI Capital Fund-I has so far invested in IndianMoney, LetsMD, Sports Flashes, Foyr and Fakespot. Sashi said three more deals were in the pipeline. "We are looking at 6-8 deals every year," he said.

Jay said the Fund's 75 per cent investment deals would be in enterprise tech start-ups either in India or the US while 25 percent would be in consumer start-ups, all in India.

During the last five years, SRI Capital invested $17 million in 30 start-ups. This was Sashi Reddy's own money. According to him this investment has grown to $70 million on paper.

One of its early investments, ThinCI, an AI chip company, recently raised $65 million from Denso, Temasek, and others. ThinCI was incubated in SRI Capital's Hyderabad office. Another early investment of SRI Capital was YuppTV that recently raised over $50 million from Emerald Media, a unit of KKR.

Sashi Reddy believes that with management teams and advisors in both the US and in India, SRI Capital is uniquely positioned to fund and support cross-border innovation.