Trident Growth Partners raises Rs 1,000 Cr as first close for maiden fund

Trident Growth Partners, a growth-stage private equity firm from India has raised Rs 1,000 crore as the first close of its maiden fund with support from other fund houses, family offices and startup founders.

The first fund raise saw support from Claypond Capital, the family office of Ranjan Pai, Chairman of Manipal Group, Fund of Funds for Startups (managed by SIDBI) and Self Reliant India Fund (SRI). Besides, there was also participation from 30 plus startup founders, general partners at venture funds and family offices.

Trident Growth Partners aim to close the fund at Rs 2,000 crore this year which also includes a greenshoe option. The founding team - Atul Gupta, Rajesh Ramaiah and Pravan Malhotra were previously with Premji Invest and International Finance Corporation.

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According to a statement, Trident Growth Partners will lead or co-lead Series B plus investments in fast-growing category leaders for a significant minority stake. While sector agnostic, the fund’s investment themes include consumer, financial services, enterprise technology, manufacturing and healthcare sectors.

Trident Growth Partners Managing Partner Atul Gupta said, “Our focus is on backing resilient, growth-stage companies with strong unit economics that prioritise sustainability and governance.”

The three managing partners have led investments in companies such as Policybazaar, KreditBee, Myntra, Lenskart, Flipkart, Purplle, FirstCry, BigBasket, Amagi, Pixis, Lambdatest, Moglix, Best Value Chemicals, Gold Plus Glass, MedPlus and NephroPlus. The statement claimed that of their 40 prior investments, 14 became unicorns and 8 had IPOs or M&A deals.

Trident Growth Partners has already completed its first investment by co-leading the Series B round in Spotdraft, a SaaS company in the Contract Lifecycle management space and is in the final stage of closing its second investment.

The Managing Partners intend to engage closely with their portfolio companies by leveraging their founder network to provide mentorship to their portfolio founders, along with an experienced operating partner network that will assist companies with key functional support as they scale up.