Beams Fintech, India’s first growth-stage fintech fund, has completed the first close of its maiden fund within three months of its official launch. The firm has already received commitments of up to $36 million for the fund and is in the advanced stages of completing the documentation.
Beams will back growth-stage companies operating at the intersection of the financial services and technology (fintech) sector. Founded by fintech veterans Sagar Agarvwal, Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain, Gaurav Jain and Venture Catalysts, the fund aims to reach the target corpus of $100 million within the next nine months.
The first close saw participation from marquee domestic and international investors including banks, NBFCs, fintech companies, large family offices, financial services CXOs, and fintech founders. Existing investors of Venture Catalysts and 9 Unicorns (the first fund from Venture Catalysts) also backed Beams in its first close and the fund is now in advanced discussions with several domestic and global institutional investors and family offices for its subsequent closes.
The Series B and C oriented fund will primarily invest in 10-12 companies from the fund. Beams follows a top-down and bottom-up approach to investing. The team has narrowed down six major themes within the fintech space including Embedded finance, Products & Technologies, Enterprise SaaS, Neobanks and platforms catering to MSMEs.
Beams has already begun its innings by investing in millennial-focused neobank, Niyo Solutions last month, alongside Accel and Lightrock India. Founded by veterans in banking and technology — Vinay Bagri and Virender Bisht— Niyo fits perfectly within the fund’s investment strategy of investing in fast-growing, high-quality, growth-stage fintech companies backed by marquee founders.
Anuj Golecha, Co-founder and Partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said, “It’s remarkable for us to achieve a first close for Beams in just a few months after the official launch. Thanks to our investors. This success in fundraising has come on the back of the track record and the team that we have built for Beams. We are building a strong operating team with a deep experience in the fintech space for the execution of this growth-stage investing strategy and founders are appreciating the same.”
Beams has already onboarded Naveen Surya as the founding team member of Beams. The fund has also onboarded several marquee partners, founders, mentors and advisors including Deepak Ahuja, Dharmesh Gathani, Ronil Sujan, Rakesh Surana, Suumit Shah, Nakul Beri, Sunil Kulkarni to add value to the portfolio companies. The fund is in the process of augmenting its investment team with strong fintech and financial services experienced investing professionals.
Sagar Agarvwal, Co-founder and Partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said, “We are very grateful to our investors for believing in our strategy and our ability to create and build India’s first growth-stage focused fintech investing fund. At Beams, we are building a very unique platform that brings together experienced founders and institutions to help and cross-pollinate with our portfolio entrepreneurs on strategy, team building, and growth.”
Naveen Surya, Fintech Expert Partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said, “These are exciting times for us and validation of the large-scale investing opportunity in the fintech space in India. Through this fund and the platform, we aim to provide investors with a value creation opportunity in the fintech domain and access to one of the most powerful fintech networks in India. With strong institutional investor interest in Beams, we aim to back several fast-growing fintech founders from our Fund 1 and create more than $25-30 billion in value for the fintech ecosystem over the next couple of years.”
“We hope to inspire more domestic fund managers to create fintech-focused growth funds for India,” added Sagar.
India has several sector-focused growth funds across consumer and health care spaces such as Fireside Ventures, Sixth Sense Venture, DSG Ventures, Healthquad, Quadria, etc but the fintech space continued its dependence on international managers such as Ribbit capital, QED, Insight, GGV, General Catalyst, Vitruvian to make growth-stage investments in India. With Beams now, a home-grown fund primarily investing in the fintech space in India at growth stages has also come into force.