LC Venture Debt Fund
about lc venture debt fund
The Fund seeks to empower early and growth stage companies in India and Southeast Asia, providing them capital to scale without significantly diluting equity. The Southeast Asia and India's venture debt market has the potential to scale up by 4 - 5x over the next few years. The Fund presents investors a unique opportunity to participate in Southeast Asia and India's venture debt story and fast growing segment.
Portfolio Companies
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Reasons to Invest in this Fund
Provide senior-secured loans, with an equity upside, to 40 - 50 companies in India and Southeast Asia at stages Series A and above with a ticket size of US$1 to US$5 million.
Managed by experienced credit professionals with combined experience of over 25 years in institutions such as IFC, GIC, Deutsche Bank and with investment and asset management experience of over US$1 billion in Asia.
Sector-agnostic mandate with focus on partnering with companies with strong business fundamentals and run by passionate founders.
The Venture Debt Opportunity
In older venture ecosystems such as US and Europe, Venture Debt has been in the range of 15-20% of total VC funding
- In mature venture markets such as USA, Venture Debt constituted 15-20% of total VC funding even in difficult years such as 2022.
- Venture debt has grown at an extremely rapid pace in Europe since its introduction in the late 1990s.
- In line with the US market, venture debt in Europe forms a considerable share as a % of VC financing and accounts for an average of 15% of the total VC funding.
Venture debt in India and Southeast Asia is a more recent phenomenon – it is highly underpenetrated and will grow at a rapid pace on back of rising share (as a percentage of VC funding) and higher VC inflows over the next 5 years.
- Venture debt entered relatively late in India, in the year 2015, and remains significantly underpenetrated, compared to US and Europe markets.
- 2020 was a breakout year for venture debt in India when the total venture debt funds in India raised jumped 2x to c.US$400m.
- The estimated venture debt market opportunity in India is US$3-4b based on current VC funding rate.
- Venture debt in SEA emerged in 2015 boosted by efforts of the Singapore Government locally.
- Data is scarce on venture debt activity in SEA but is expected to be in line with Indian market given the similarities in venture funding activity.
- For growing economies such as India and SEA, Venture Debt investments vary in the 3-6% range of total VC funding.
Team
Sanket Sinha
MD & CEO, Global Asset Management
Sanket brings with him over one-and-a-half decades of expertise in investment management, structured credit, and private financing. Sanket has worked with renowned global financial institutions including Edelweiss Financial Services, X10, and Deutsche Bank. He also holds a unique distinction of being a co-founder of a fintech venture, which enables him to have unique insights into this domain. Sanket has executed over US$750M of private investment transactions across sectors like life sciences, logistics, marine, roads, real estate, and technology. Sanket received his degree in Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Mumbai and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode. Sanket is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
Ankit Agrawal
Executive Director, Head - Growth Debt
Ankit has over 14 years of experience focused on investments across the capital stack (private equity, long term and structured debt). Prior to joining Lighthouse Canton, Ankit has led and managed equity and debt investments in his roles with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), GIC, and the Piramal Group. He has overseen portfolios and transactions of over US$500mn in various sectors including manufacturing, agribusiness, hospitality, logistics, real estate, healthcare and more.
Ashish Jain
Director, Growth Debt
Ashish has over 17 years of experience in Private Equity, Venture Debt, Real Estate, Hospitality, Warehousing and Business Development. Before his current role at Lighthouse Canton, he was the Director of Investments at Stride Ventures. His impressive career path includes significant positions at Mirae Asset, IndusInd Bank, Yesbank, and JP Morgan Chase. Ashish is a qualified Chartered Accountant and LLB (General), and he has earned an Executive MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.
Neelaksh Arora
Vice President, Growth Debt
Neelaksh has over 6 years of experience in investments and financial consulting. Prior to joining Lighthouse Canton, he has executed new investments across healthcare delivery, pharmaceuticals and life sciences and facilitated financial due diligence across diverse sectors like hospitality, tourism, food and beverages while working with Quadria Capital and KPMG. In his last stint with CredAvenue (Yubi) he facilitated corporate debt solutions for corporates and startups.
