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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

November - 2011 - issue > Venture Beat

Aavishkaar Raises Rs. 280 Crore in Series D Funding

ST Team

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

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Mumbai-based venture capital firm Aavishkaar India, raises around Rs.280 crore for its new fund Aavishkaar II. The funding came from CDC Group, KfW Group, Dutch development bank FMO, and the International Finance Corporation. The funding has also seen commitment from the telecom networking equipment major, Cisco Systems. With this funding the company will invest up to Rs. 2.25 crore in early-stage firms, and between Rs. 45 crore and Rs. 68 crore in later-stage transactions. The fund will focus on scaling up affordable models targeting the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ in sectors like healthcare, water and sanitation, education, agriculture, renewable energy and similar emerging sectors.

Founded by Vineet Rai in early 2001, Aavishkaar aims to harness the entrepreneurial spirit at the lower levels of the pyramid to create inclusive economic development. Through various initiatives in micro equity and micro finance space, the company is pioneering the approach of building a financial ecosystem, which would nurture entrepreneurs by providing risk capital for scalable rural-focused enterprises.

Rai is also the CEO of Aavishkaar, and the Managing Partner for their flagship SME fund AIMVCF, apart from two microfinance funds AGIMDC I & II. He is also the Co-founder and Director of the pioneering multiple bottom line investment advisory industry, Intellecap. ; the Co-founder and Director of Chennai-based non-profit company Villfro Innovations Foundation; apart from which he serves on the board of several portfolio companies and plays a number of advisory roles.