According to two senior employees, Mumbai-based wealth advice company Waterfield Advisors has announced the ultimate closing of its first fund of funds (FoF) at 540 crores from family offices, very high net worth individuals, and institutional investors. According to two senior employees, Mumbai-based wealth advice company Waterfield Advisors has announced the ultimate closing of its first fund of funds (FoF) at 540 crores from family offices, very high net worth individuals, and institutional investors.
The FoF co-invests in growth or late-stage bets in the portfolio companies of the funds with an exit horizon of four to five years. It also invests in private equity (PE) and venture capital funds.
“The fund was slightly oversubscribed as initially, we were looking to raise ₹500 crores,” Siddharth Jhunjhunwala, head of Waterfield’s FoF, said in an interview.
Nearly three months after gaining Sebi permission, the fund reached its first closing of Rs. 200 crores in June of last year.
According to Jhunjhunwala, Waterfield intends to conclude its first fund-of-funds by the first half of 2023 and is also planning to create its second FoF with a $250 million corpus. “Vintage alignment is key in this business, and we believe that several quality fund managers are expected to hit the markets again in 2024. We’ve got to have the funds for evaluating and investing at that time,” he said.
70% of the money from the initial fund of funds will be invested in VC and PE funds, with the other 30% going directly into companies in the financial services, consumer goods, healthcare, and technology industries.
The FoF has so far invested in five companies, including seed and growth funds run by A91 Partners, Fireside Ventures, and India Quotient, as well as a PE fund. FoF makes investments between $7 million and $10 million.
Co-investing in companies that are a part of the VC and PE funds it has invested in is what the FoF does. The FoF has so far made one of these co-investments in an unnamed consumer firm and anticipates closing two additional agreements with a ticket value of $3–$5 million soon.
