Airavat Capital, a leading public equities investment firm focused on technology-enabled businesses, today announced the launch of Airavat Global Technology Fund R (AGTF R). This landmark move will offer Indian HNIs and institutional investors the opportunity to leverage Indian technology ecosystem insight to capitalize on the growth potential of top listed technology companies worldwide. This is the first-ever global technology fund to be based out of GIFT City.
Airavat’s Global Tech Fund has garnered significant initial interest, surpassing $40 million, from a diverse range of investors including existing Airavat stakeholders, VC investors, technology founders/CTOs, and family offices. Notable investors in existing funds managed by Airavat include Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Hitesh Oberoi (Info Edge), Abhay Pandey and VT Bharadwaj (A91 Partners), Shray Chandra (Capitalmind), Jitendra Gupta (Jupiter Money, ex-Citrus Pay), Pankaj Chaddah (Shyft, ex-Zomato), Sidu Ponnappa (ex-Gojek) and Tanay Tayal (Moonfrog) amongst many others.
Airavat Capital believes that its focus and network in the Indian technology ecosystem should provide the Global Tech Fund a strong insight edge. As technology investors in India over the last decade, the firm has consistently come across global investment ideas that have germinated from the perspective of local Indian developers and technology talent. India is rich with the knowledge and experience needed to evaluate global companies, particularly in deep tech and software as a service (SaaS). Airavat seeks to harness these perspectives from employees, developers, competitors, and customers of these global companies based in India, and provide an avenue for sophisticated Indian capital to benefit from it.
While AGTF R caters to Indian pools of capital, Airavat Capital is also launching GTF NR (a sister fund of AGTF R) aimed at raising capital from investors in Southeast Asia (SEA) and the Middle East (ME). GTF NR has already seen strong interest from family offices and HNIs in the SEA and ME regions. The launch of GTF NR will further reinforce GIFT City’s status as an emerging international investing hub, paving the way for future investors to take advantage of the enabling regulations.
Airavat also recently redomiciled a Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) vehicle to India with the launch of Airavat Capital India Fund (ACIF) in GIFT city, becoming amongst the first fund managers to migrate under the recent regulatory framework for off-market transfer of securities. ACIF pools capital from offshore investors to invest in India. Airavat has managed and advised India-focused funds for the last 6 years with a solid track record.
“With the launch and migration of our funds to GIFT City, we think we are at the beginning of a tectonic shift in the Indian investment landscape. India now has the second largest software developer community globally and could become the largest in the coming years. We think the time is right to build a world-class global technology hedge fund that expresses India’s insight and knowledge advantage globally.” said Rohit Bhat and Suraj Subramaniam, Managing Partners, Airavat Capital, commenting on the recent developments at Airavat Capital.
“IFSC Authority has created enabling regulatory and business environment for India-centric funds to onshore the funds at Indian IFSC from offshore locations, we are seeing good traction for both new funds setting up and re-domiciliation of funds from overseas locations to GIFT IFSC,” said Dipesh Shah, Executive Director, IFSC Authority.
Airavat Capital takes pride in investing behind market leaders in rapidly expanding niches and employs a private investment-like approach in public equities. Its India funds, namely Airavat Capital Trust and Airavat Capital India Fund, have backed technology-enabled businesses in sectors such as consumer, financial services, information technology, and pharma over the last six years. With the upcoming launch of its Global Tech Fund, the firm seeks to expand this technology-focused investing practice onto a global canvas and envisions crossing $100 million in assets under management (AUM) over the next year.
Trilegal acted as legal advisors and PWC as tax advisors to Airavat in setting up the funds. HDFC Bank Limited is the designated depository participant and custodian to Airavat Capital India Fund and facilitated the relocation of the FPI to GIFT City. MITCON Credentia is the trustee and Kfin Technologies Limited is the fund administrator of Airavat’s funds in GIFT City.
