Funds managed
| Fund name | Asset Class | License |
| GVFL Startup Fund | VC/ Early growth stage | SEBI AIF Cat 1 |
| Golden Gujarat Growth Fund-l | VC/ Growth stage | SEBI AIF Cat 1 |
| SME Technology Venture Fund | VC/ Growth stage | SEBI AIF Cat 1 |
The first three funds-GVCF 1990, GVCF 1995 and GVCF 1997 has been liquidated with good returns and the Gujarat IT Fund was disinvested.
About the AMC
- GVFL Limited (formerly Gujarat Venture Finance Limited), it is an independent, autonomous board-managed, venture finance company based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India founded in the year 1990.
- Sanjay K. Randhar is the Managing Director of GVFL Ltd.
- Mihir Joshi has been with GVFL for over 15 years and has experienced all stages of VC life cycle – fund raising, structuring of Funds, investments and harvesting returns to the investors.
- GVFL has been recognized as “Best Technology Venture Fund India 2018” by CFI.co, UK.
Investment Philosophy (for firm)
GVFL has recently launched a Startup and MSME focused Venture Capital fund called ‘GVFL Startup Fund’. It is a SEBI registered closed ended sector agnostic fund. The Fund is now in Investment mode and is actively seeking investments opportunities. It is making Equity investments in Early Growth stage startups. The SME Technology Venture Fund is focusing on early and growth stage technology companies across India.
Media
Title: GVFL raises Rs 100 cr for Rs 250 cr fund; to get Rs 60 Cr more, Source: Reuters, Date: 21 April 2009
https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-39163020090421
The new fund, which eyeing growth capital investments, is planning to close 2-3 deals in next one month.
GVFL Ltd, which is currently raising its SME Technology Venture Fund with a target of Rs 250 crore, has achieved first close at Rs 100 crore. The fund will get another Rs 60 crore in next few months, the firm’s interim Managing Director Mihir Joshi said in an interview to VCCircle.
Joshi has been appointed after long standing MD Vishnu Varshney stepped down from his post. Joshi is heading the fund till a new MD is found.
GVFL has risen about Rs 133 crore over five funds till date, and the new fund is its sixth vehicle. The target size of the new fund is nearly more than double the size of all the previous five funds combined. The dramatic increase in the fund size is because the new fund will focus on growth capital investments.
Till now GVFL has focused on early stage deals, investing between Rs 2-10 crore per deal. With the new fund, its deal sizes will go up. GVFL raises most of its funds from domestic institutions and its limited partners include institutions like CDC, IDBI, SIDBI, World Bank and other private and public sector organizations.
Stepping up Investments- GVFL now seems be looking to step up investments and Joshi believes that this is the best time to invest. “We may close 2-3 more deals in next one month,” he added.
The fund is looking to do deals in areas like information technology, biotech and nano technology. It will look at areas like healthcare and education in the IT domain, said Joshi. Some of GVFL’s recent deals were white light emitting diode (LED) solar lighting systems maker Pegasus Semiconductors. One of its portfolio firms, 20 Microns, also listed on exchanges in October last year, in which the firm offloaded a part stake.
GVFL is one of the most active and largest state government-backed venture capital firms in the country. Other such VC firms include Punjab Infotech Venture Fund, Kerala Venture Capital Fund, Hyderabad Information Technology Venture Enterprise Ltd, Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund, etc.
Title: Equanimity Invests USD 2 Million in FreshVnF with Participation from GVFL, Source: inventiva, Date: 29 May 2019
Equanimity Ventures a Mumbai based VC fund investing in capital efficient, technology enabled, early stage companies led the maiden investment round in FreshVnF, a fresh Fruits & Vegetable technology platform optimizing the supply chain for Hotels, Restaurants, Cafes & retail consumers. This investment round saw participation from GVFL and Mr. Manish Choksi (Non- Executive Vice Chairman and part of the promoter group of Asian Paints Limited) through his family office according to a statement.
Founded in 2018, FreshVnF was started by Atul Kumar, Vikas Dosala, Sumit Rai, and Aashish Krishnatre, graduates from IITs & IIMs. It is currently operating in Mumbai. FreshVnF is a ML driven technology platform creating market linkages for farmers by streamlining the supply chain from farm to fork bringing efficiency and transparency to the entire value chain, thereby helping hotels, restaurants & cafes order & procure fresh produce online with a data-driven inventory & replenishment platform.
Commenting on the investment, Rajesh Sehgal, Managing Partner at Equanimity Ventures said, “Supplying fresh fruits and vegetables from farm to fork has been a challenge for years. FreshVnF is changing this by leveraging new age technology, current mobile penetration and availability of cheap data to build an efficient supply chain helping reduce wastage and simultaneously ensuring fresh produce reaches your plate. Equanimity is enthused to support Atul and the FreshVnF team in their quest to enhance their customers and the average farmer’s lives.”
Atul Kumar, Co-Founder at FreshVnF said, “We are thrilled to welcome Equanimity and GVFL. Their experience at nurturing and scaling start-ups will help us achieve our goal of transforming the food supply chain and reinforces the market opportunity, the founding team’s vision, and our capability to address this market at scale. These funds will help us grow our farm network for consistent supplies, build our technology platform for seamless supply chain operations at scale, and help us achieve our goal of providing fresh farm produce to end customer within 16 hours of harvesting. FreshVnF will work aggressively to increase its retail footprint and service over one lakh retail customers in western India”
Title: Venture Capital firm GVFL invests in technology startup EroNkan, Source: Economic Times, Date: 11 March 2019
GVFL Ltd., a venture capital firm, has invested an undisclosed sum for a Series An investment round in EroNkan Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a high end technology startup that enables IoT technology to be applied across various industries and verticals.
EroNkan provides tools, technology, consulting and insights into industrial processes, machine performance and shop floor dynamics so that effective and timely decisions can be taken at both ground level and senior management to improve productivity, quality and availability across the organization at all levels. With solutions enabling manufacturers to track their operational equipment efficiencies (OEE) in real-time and helping them improve quality and productivity and reduce wastage.
EroNkan provides solutions to diverse Industry sectors like food and beverages, pharmaceuticals and discrete manufacturing verticals. The startup is headquartered at Ahmedabad with a product development centre at Bangalore.
EroNkan is led by Ketan Parekh, an IIM Bangalore alumnus and co-founded by team members from Stanford and IIT Madras, who bring complimentary skill sets into the company. Each of them carries experience of managing & serving multinational technology ventures.
“The Industry 4.0 and manufacturing analytics market has a huge potential for growth and the capital infusion from GVFL will be used to enhance the plant, works technology platform and to scale operations. We will be able to grow faster in India and also start planning its foray in the international market” said Ketan Parekh, CEO and Co-founder of EroNkan.
The infusion of funds from GVFL will help EroNkan conduct the research and trials required to develop the engine to amplify the product upgradation & business development efforts informs Vish Desai(CTO& CO Founder) and Rajan Vasa(Chairman & Co Founder).
“India as an upcoming manufacturing hub with the governments “Make in India” initiative there is a great potential for Industry 4.0. EroNkan has the requisite expertise and insights to enable many industries to adopt the IOT and data automation technology to work towards setting up the Industry 4.0 standard. We are happy to back promoters with a good professional track record in establishing and sustaining businesses in the past” said Sanjay Randhar, Managing Director of GVFL.
GVFL Limited was founded in 1990 at the initiative of World Bank with Government of Gujarat as one of the first Venture capital firms in India. GVFL has managed 8 funds, invested in 91 companies and exited nearly 75% with handsome returns to investors.
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