Verma is in talks to launch a multi-sector, multi-stage fund that will dabble in public markets, along with taking a diversified approach towards early-stage investments, these people said.
“Verma will stay on at Nexus for a few months as he transitions out of his current board positions,” one of the persons said. “He is expected to be around at the VC fund till August-September.”
Verma’s 13-year stint with Nexus saw him invest in startups like enterprise unicorn Postman, edtech platform Unacademy, and Infra.market, which sells construction materials, as he focused on consumer tech, enterprise, SaaS, healthcare, and business-to-business (B2B) commerce verticals. He had backed around 80 startups during his tenure at Nexus.
Modelled on some of the global crossover funds, which deploy capital across early stages in private companies all the way to their IPOs, Verma’s venture will look to hire executives who will work closely with the portfolio firms, said one of the persons cited above. “ The focus will be to bring in people who have help on the operating side. The strategy is to prepare startups to go public in five-six years with a valuation of $500-600 million,” he added.
“This is a solo partner fund with the option of going beyond technology and consumer deals which is mostly the remit of pure-play VC funds… The cheque sizes will start at $4-5 million but can go up to $10-12 million for scaled companies,” the person added.
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Verma is expected to start marketing his fund among potential domestic and global limited partners (sponsors of funds) later this year when he officially leaves Nexus.“The fund will likely be $150-200 million in size. He’ll be a solo general partner with a team of around a dozen executives,” said another person familiar with the discussions.
When contacted by ET, a Nexus spokesperson and Verma did not comment on the development.
In recent years, solo partner funds like Nikhil Vora’s Sixth Sense Ventures have found success across private and public markets. In 2021, Vora raised his third and largest fund at Rs 2,600 crore.
Also read | Consumer fund Sixth Sense invests Rs 100 crore in regional spices brand Pushp
Verma’s departure comes a year after Nexus raised its largest India fund of $700 million.
Among the oldest India-dedicated funds, Nexus has differentiated itself by backing early-stage cross-border software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups with US as a big focus market. Over the years, it has further strengthened its US exposure in the enterprise and SaaS segments.
Founded in 2006 by Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur, the late Naren Gupta, along with Sandeep Singhal and Suvir Sujan, Nexus has increasingly allocated larger sums to the India-US enterprise sector with successes like Postman and Pubmatic which went public in 2020. Singhal left Nexus in 2021 and is now an advisor at Avaana Capital, a climate tech fund.
Gupta, who passed away in 2021, was a first-generation Indian American tech entrepreneur. He cofounded Integrated Systems Inc, a software firm, in 1980 and stayed on as its chief executive for about 15 years.