Stride Ventures, one of India’s leading debt venture fund, sees consumer, business-to-business companies and electric vehicle sectors as the most attractive for financing this year.
(Bloomberg) — Stride Ventures, one of India’s leading debt venture fund, sees consumer, business-to-business companies and electric vehicle sectors as the most attractive for financing this year.
“Fintech has taken a slight backseat because Reserve Bank of India has recently come up with digital lending guidelines, and a lot of companies in the fintech sector are trying to understand the nitty gritties of the regulation and are going slightly slow just to make sure they are not breaching any of those,” Apoorva Sharma, partner at Stride Ventures said in a Bloomberg TV interview.
With sentiment for venture capital equity muted, many late stage companies are deferring their primary capital requirements and substituting some of that with debt, she said, adding they are treading the funding path “carefully”. Sharma doesn’t anticipate debt deployment by VCs crossing levels seen last year because the momentum for equity has waned.
In India, the size of venture capital debt market was $800 million last year, she said. Venture debt is a type of financing taken by companies to fund growth, meet working capital and capex requirements along with acquisitions too.
Stride Venture has sanctioned more than $340 million across funds, Sharma said, without giving a time frame.
–With assistance from Haslinda Amin, Rishaad Salamat and Anand Menon.
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