Nature Fix Climate NFC Ventures, a $200 million venture capital fund that was founded by Harsha Moily, son of former Karnataka chief minister and union minister Veerappa Moily and former Abraaj India MD Balaji Srinivas, hopes to hold a first close in the first quarter of 2022.
The Bengaluru-based fund has received significant LP limited partner commitments already and is aiming to raise $100 million for the first close, Moily told Business Today.
We've spent a couple of months in the US meeting investors. We were up against a lot of headwinds, and we knew that we are up against a lot of them. It is a nascent sector in India and it is a climate tech fund. It is our first fund. He said that we received a pretty positive response.
Anchor investors in the fund will include high net worth individuals HNI asset management division of a large investment bank, a fund of funds and the venture capital arm of a large agri enterprise.
The fund is interested in the category II Alternative Investment Fund AIF, which has a third GP, based in Israel.
We are looking at Israel on two fronts. It is a more mature market in terms of technology. We would like to back startups there and open up the Indian and global markets for them. We are looking at technology transfer from Israel to India. He added that that is the reason we need a strong GP in Israel, who will double up as an operating partner.
Moily, who holds an MBA from Thunderbird, said the Garvin School of International Management USA previously worked in agribusiness, private equity, telecom, hydrocarbon and agribusiness sectors with companies such as Amas Investments, Reliance Industries, and Cargill. Prior to his 15 year stint in the Indian arm of Dubai-based private equity firm Abraaj, Srinivas worked with The Carlyle Group and Intel.
NFC will invest primarily on seed and Series A start ups in four climate-tech verticals - green buildings, energy storage, sustainable agriculture and alternative energy, with ticket size starting at $5 million on the lower side to $15-20 million including follow-ons. It is currently looking for start-ups to build technologies that reduce the green premium.
The 10 2 years fund aims to have a total of 18-20 investments, of which 12-14 deals would be in India and 6-7 in Israel.
We expect the inflection point of EVs and other sectors to arrive in about 5 -- 7 years from now. We will see a lot of activity around climate-tech in the next 3 -- 5 years, as we are the first off the block. That is why a 12 year lifecycle is so important. The idea is to generate a deal flow now, so we can start investing immediately after that, as we do a first close in the first quarter, Srinivas said.