In the midst of frenzied tech dealmaking, Rishi Navani's Epiq Capital is aiming for a $150 million second fund.

Epiq Capital based by Rishi Navani is progressing to shut its second India fund of $150 million to speculate in growth-stage startups, coinciding with the heightened activity within the technology investment house, 2 individuals within the understand of the matter aforesaid.

After having backed corporations like eyewear distributor Lenskart, news aggregation platform Dailyhunt, and health and fitness startup Curefit from its $100 million Fund-I, Epiq is eyeing domestic capital for its new vehicle. this may be a move removed from the strategy of its maiden fund, which was sponsored alone by foreign restricted partners, as per sources conversant in the fund’s thinking. “The fund can seemingly raise 50-50 from domestic and international sponsors this point around,” aforesaid someone about to the event.

Epiq started off by shopping for secondaries in mature technical school companies however is currently positioning itself as an associate capitalist which can usually choose anyplace between two and eighth stakes in late-stage technical school companies during a mixture of primary and secondary shares. The fund can deploy $10-20 million in these corporations. thus far it's backed six corporations.

“They have already received commitments and can seemingly do a final within sight early next year,” one in each of the individuals aforesaid.

Navani failed to reply to ET’s queries on Epiq’s second fund.

Epiq was launched 5 years agone by Navani, World Health Organization had cofounded the working capital fund Matrix Partners at the side of Avnish Bajaj in 2006. whereas it took a number of years for the fund to initiate, since 2018, Epiq has been by selection moving into a number of the larger corporations.

The fund picked up a stake in Lenskart once it absolutely was valued at $400 million, by shopping for secondary shares from Chiratae Ventures. the corporate is currently valued at $2.4 billion. The Mumbai-based firm is presently sitting on 3-5 times come on capital endowed from different portfolio companies like Pristine Care and Dailyhunt still, aforesaid one in each of the individuals, World Health Organization failed to need to be named as these details were personal.

The fundraising by Epiq comes amid a never-seen-before boom in technical school investments in India with twenty-eight unicorns -- privately-held startups with a valuation of $1 billion or additional -- being additional within the past 9 months of this year. Indian startups had raised $25.2 billion until Sep nine this year, per knowledge supplier Preqin, compared with $11.2 billion within the whole of two020. to urge a chunk of the action, restricted partners, World Health Organization area unit investors in funds, also are doubling down on India. ET rumored on August eleven that Stellaris Venture Partners had raised $225 million for its second India-dedicated fund, nearly thrice the dimensions of its $90 million maiden fund, launched four years agone. ET conjointly rumored that A91 Partners has closed its second fund, notching up a corpus of around $525 million -- nearly five hundredth larger compared with its maiden fund.