Alpha Capital, a Partner owned investment management Firm founded by Vishal Ootam and Vivek Anand PS, has garnered commitments to invest about INR 1,500 Cr over the upcoming 3 to 4 years in India. It is called The Alpha Pledge (TAP).
Breaking away from the traditional blind pool fund model, Alpha has designed TAP as a hybrid structure whereby family offices and UHNW’s have given an upfront commitment with exclusive top up co-investment rights to those who opt in. Working with Alpha offers investors a high degree of transparency into what they are buying.
Alpha Capital seeks to provide growth capital to experienced entrepreneurs who are building large consumer facing business that aim to ‘Sell to India’. These include industries like Consumer Care Products & Brands, F&B, Financial Services and Entertainment to name a few.
Alpha Capital aims to deploy between INR 100 to INR 150 Cr per investment across 10 to 15 such businesses over the next 3 to 4 years. Alpha Capital is largely agnostic to whether these businesses are listed or private including PIPE deals.
Investors here include some of the admired business owners in India who have committed not just to settle their capital but their skill sets to help build out the investee businesses. Alpha calls this ‘Connected Capital’ (TM)
In the last quarter of 2017, Alpha bought a significant minority stake in one of India’s leading F&B businesses, Food Link Services Private Ltd which runs its business under two vertical’s – Banqueting & Catering and Casual Dining. Founded by Sanjay Vazirani in 2001, this is the first time Foodlink has accepted any institutional capital.
The operating team’s track record also includes investments into Amit Jatia led Westlife Development and Darshan Patel promoted Vini Cosmetics.
In early 2018, Alpha has made an investment into Credable – a niche fin-tech company that is creating a platform for supply chain financing and vendor financing in India.
One of their recent high profile investments is InCred Finance – a new age tech & data science driven retail and MSME NBFC founded by Bhupinder Singh in 2015. InCred’s main business lines are consumer finance, small business loans, two wheeler finance, student loans, school financing and affordable housing finance. InCred’s leadership in technology, data science and risk management is bolstered by its class leading management team and they are now in the midst of their second round equity raise.
