APEX PE Awards: ChrysCapital, Motilal Oswal PE, Ascent Capital, InvAscent & Lighthouse judged best funds of 2021
Press Release
ChrysCapital, Motilal Oswal Private Equity, Ascent Capital, InvAscent and Lighthouse Funds were voted the top Private Equity investors in India during 2021. The Venture Intelligence “Awards for Private Equity Excellence” (APEX) is dedicated to celebrating the best that the Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital industry has to offer.
Speaking about current trends in the industry, Gaurav Ahuja, Managing Director at ChrysCapital, which won the PE Fund of the Year Award said, “Two trends are picking up steam in Indian PE: an increasing appreciation of ESG, and a deeper focus on operational value add. "The maturing Indian PE sector is becoming more competitive. PE firms cannot rely on multiple expansions or organic revenue growth alone to drive returns, especially in a difficult macro environment. Rather, they must build capabilities in-house that can drive operational value-add measures for its portfolio companies: cost management, organizational development, process optimization, and securing bolt-on acquisitions – all of which are key focus areas for Enhancin, ChrysCapital’s Portfolio Operations Group. Deep engagement and value-add at the operational level has the potential to drive meaningful value accretion, and hence must become a focus of PE firms, regardless of sector or deal construct,” he added.
Vishal Tulsyan, CEO & Managing Director, Motilal Oswal Private Equity, winner of the PE Fund Raise of the Year award said "Since its inception, Motilal Oswal PE’s guiding principle for raising funds has been to provide Indian individual retail investors an opportunity to participate in the Indian growth story, along with a robust institutional participation. Accordingly, we have been blessed to have a balanced mix of HNI and institutional investors in all our growth capital funds, many of whom have supported us across multiple funds. The support of our investors has enabled us to double our fund size with every subsequent fund, from Rs 550 crore in the first fund to our latest fund (IBEF IV) which is on track to raise Rs 4,500 crore. Achieving the first close for IBEF IV within 4 months of launch reinforces the strong belief that investors have in the Indian mid-market ecosystem, where entrepreneurs are scripting new success stories on an increasingly frequent basis."
Raja Kumar, Founder and Managing Director, Ascent Capital winner of the Growth Capital Fund of the Year said “On behalf of the entire Ascent team and our entrepreneurs I thank Venture Intelligence for this acknowledgement. Having seen the evolution of growth capital over the past couple of decades, this period is probably the best time to be an experienced growth capital investor in India. We are fortunate to have developed deep expertise in this exciting segment where we have not only helped our entrepreneurs build industry leaders but have also been able to create successful exits. As more capital flows into the early-stage and late-stage ecosystem in India, it will translate into more opportunities for the growth segment for potential investment opportunities as well as exits."
“We thank Venture Intelligence for accepting our nomination, and our peers in the PE-VC ecosystem for voting us the “Healthcare Investor of the Year”. It is a humbling moment for us here at InvAscent" said T.P. Devarajan, Senior Managing Director InvAscent winner of the Healthcare Fund of the year. "We are proud of our team which worked closely with all our portfolio companies to overcome challenges due to the pandemic. We are also grateful to the promoters of our portfolio companies who braved the pandemic to ensure business continuity. The past two years have reinforced the importance of an active partnership model of PE investing.” he added.
The APEX Awardees are selected based on both Self Nomination by the participating PE-VC firms as well as "crowd sourced" nominations and voting from the Limited Partner, PE-VC and advisory communities. (The main criteria are Exit Track Record, New Fund Raises & Follow-on Funding Rounds for Portfolio Companies).
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