IIM Bangalore (IIMB) is getting a new Centre of Excellence – The Tony James Centre for Private Equity and Venture Capital, with Prof. Dinesh Kumar, Dean Faculty signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on behalf of IIMB with Mathew Cyriac, the Executive Chairman of Florintree Advisors Pvt Ltd, who is an IIMB alumnus from the 1994 batch.
This comes at a time when private equity (A large investment in an already growing or developed company) and venture capital (A smaller investment in startups at the initial stage) investments are growing sizably in India.
Such funds invested $6.9 billion, across 104 deals in Indian companies in May 2024, according to data from the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF).
Out of these deals, just 16 alone were valued over $100 million each, totaling to about $5.6 billion. This was 61% higher than what was seen in May 2023, with just a total of $3.5 billion across 12 deals.
The new centre is named after Tony James, one of Wall Street’s most influential investment bankers and former President, COO, and Executive Vice Chairman of Blackstone.
“My alma mater IIM Bangalore, which is a leader in the area of finance amongst the top B-schools of the country, is naturally positioned to take the lead on this,” said Cyriac. “I expect the Tony James Centre for Private Equity and Venture Capital at IIMB to emerge as a globally reputed ‘go-to’ place for all players interested in private equity as well as venture capital.”
Cyriac was awarded the IIMB Gold Medal for graduating at the top of his MBA class. Before working at Florintree Advisors, he was Managing Director in the Corporate Private Equity Group of Blackstone India for nearly a decade, with previous experience in the investment banking division of Bank of America in India and in the engineering division of Tata Motors. He has also served as Head Corporate Development Strategy of iGate Global Solutions Limited.
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Apart from the centre, four new scholarships for IIMB’s PhD and MBA/Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) students as well as four new classrooms in IIMB’s K Block, honoring distinguished former IIMB faculty members Prof. Prakash Apte, Prof. Prasanna Chandra, Prof. S. Sundararajan, and Prof. George Varughese, will also be set up with support from Cyriac.
“This is the single largest ever contribution from an alumnus and we are grateful to Mathew for his generous support”, said IIMB Director Prof. Rishikesha Krishnan.
Prof. Sourav Mukherji, Dean, Alumni Relations & Development at IIM Bangalore, said the proposed Centre was a shining example of an alumnus giving back to his alma mater in a meaningful way. “We hope this initiative serves as an inspiration to other alumni to collaborate with IIM Bangalore,” he added.
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