Fintech Veterans founded Beams Fintech Fund Announces 1st-Close for its Maiden Fund at INR 270 Cr

Beams will primarily back fast-growing Fintech Companies in their Series B & C rounds

Beams Fintech Fund (Beams), India’s 1st Growth Stage Fintech Fund, founded by Fintech veteran, Sagar Agarvwal, Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain, Gaurav Jain and Venture catalysts, announced today that it has completed the first close of its maiden Fund within three months of its official launch.

(L-R) - Gaurav Jain, Navin Surya, Sagar Agarvwal, Apoorva Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain

The firm has already received commitments of up to INR 270 crores or $36 Mn for the Fund and is in advanced stages of completing the documentation. Beams will back Growth Stage Companies operating at the intersection of Financial Services & Technology (Fintech) sector. The Fund aims to reach the target corpus of INR 750 crores or $100 Mn within the next nine months.

The First Close saw participation from marquee Domestic & International investors including Banks, NBFCs, Fintech’s, Large Family offices, Financial Service ‘s CXOs & Fintech Founders.

Existing investors of Venture Catalysts & 9 Unicorns (first fund from Venture Catalysts) also backed Beams in its first close. The Fund is now in advanced discussions with several Domestic and Global Institutional investors & Family offices for its subsequent closes & achieve its initial target corpus of INR 750 crores or $100 Mn.

The Series B & C oriented fund will primarily invest in 10-12 companies from the Fund and will maintain its Fintech focused theme. Beams follows a Top Down & Bottoms Up approach towards investing. The team has narrowed down 6 major themes within the Fintech space including Embedded finance, Products & Technologies, Enterprise SAAS, Neo banks and Platforms catering to MSMEs.

Beams has already begun its innings by investing in millennial-focused neo-bank, Niyo Solutions Inc last month, alongside Accel and Lightrock India. Founded by veterans in banking and technology — Vinay Bagri and Virender Bisht— Niyo fits perfectly within the fund’s investment strategy of investing in fast-growing, high-quality, growth-stage fintech companies backed by marquee founders.

Anuj Golecha, Co-Founder & Partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said “It’s remarkable for us to achieve a First Close for Beams in just a few months after the official launch. Thanks to our investors. This success in fund raising has come on the back of the track record & the team that we have built for Beams. We are building a strong operating team with a deep experience in the Fintech space for the execution of this Growth Stage investing strategy and founders are appreciating the same.”

Beams has already onboarded Naveen Surya as the Founding team member of Beams. The Fund has also on-boarded several marquee Partners, Founders, Mentors & Advisors including Deepak Ahuja, Dharmesh Gathani, Ronil Sujan, Rakesh Surana, Suumit Shah, Nakul Beri, Sunil Kulkarni to add value to the portfolio companies. The Fund is in the process of augmenting its investment team with strong Fintech & Financial Services experienced investing professionals.

Sagar Agarvwal, Co-Founder & Partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said, “We are very grateful to our investors for believing in our strategy and our ability to create & build India’s first Growth Stage focused Fintech investing Fund. In Beams, we are building a very unique platform that brings together experienced Founders & Institutions to help & cross-pollinate with our portfolio entrepreneurs on strategy, team building and growth”

“With a strong institutional investor interest in Beams, we hope to create more than $25-30 Bn in value for the Fintech ecosystem over the next couple of years.” said Sagar Agarvwal.

Naveen Surya, Fintech Expert Partner, Beams Fintech Fund, said, "These are exciting times for us and validation of the large-scale investing opportunity in the Fintech space in India at Growth Stages. Through this Fund and the platform, we aim to provide investors with a value creation opportunity in the Fintech domain and access to one of the most powerful Fintech networks in India."

India has several sector focused Growth Funds across consumer & health care space such as Fireside Ventures, Sixth Sense Venture, DSG Ventures, Healthquad, Quadria etc but the Fintech space continued its dependence on International Managers such as Ribbit capital, QED, Insight, GGV, General Catalyst, Vitruvian to make growth stage investments in India. With Beams now, we will also have a home-grown Fund primarily investing in the Fintech space in India at Growth Stages.

Beams Fintech Fund is a Growth Capital Fintech fund for India offering Ecosystem, Value Add & Capital to support the Fintech founders of tomorrow. Beams is backed by India's first and largest integrated incubator, Venture Catalysts, that also has 9Unicorns, a $100 million early-stage sector-agnostic accelerator fund in its stable. Beams Fintech Fund is focusing on investing in growth stage rounds of financial technology companies run by exceptional entrepreneurs. We aim to create the market leaders of the Fintech revolution in India by supporting entrepreneurs in building enterprise solutions for the financial services industry & disrupting the way banking & financial services are traditionally offered to customers & businesses.

UAE Based OMA Emirates Group Launches $3 Mn Fintech Fund

UAE-based OMA Emirates Group has launched a fintech Fund. the newly launched fund will focus on emerging and potential financial technology companies and startups in India.

According to ET reports, OMA Emirates will invest a corpus of $3 million towards fintech startups that have been in operation for 12 months or less. Apart from this, the firm also plans to invest $20 million across other fintech verticals and towards innovation of existing products and services depending on the national and international presence of the company.

Commenting on the development, Niranj Sangal, Group CEO, OMA Emirates Group said, “The payments space, particularly in India, has evolved with several remarkable innovations. Globally, India has been viewed as a growing market for startups and SMEs and has been an active player in the FinTech segment."

Not only this, OMA Emirates will provide support to tech startups in terms of technology, R&D, practices and GTM strategy. The firm is focused on growing and developing fintechs in addition to providing capital support.

“With the OMA Emirates FinTech Fund, we aim to aid such FinTech startups which we believe will be a credible asset to OMA Emirates. We are looking beyond simply providing financial support and will explore strategic partnerships with all the companies we engage,” added Sangal.The OMA Emirates fintech Fund further aims to provide growth with adequate mentoring and scalability to potential companies within the sector.

The OMA Emirates fintech Fund further aims to provide growth with adequate mentoring and scalability to potential companies within the sector.

Bahrain’s EDB Sets Up a New Fintech Fund to Invest in Indian Startups

Bahrain’s EDB has set up office in Mumbai to accelerate its fintech development program. The new fintech fund will invest in Indian startups that have an economic interest in Bahrain. In a bid to speed up its financial offerings in the fintech space, Bahrain has tied up with the Singapore Fintech Consortium to invest in fintech start-ups in the middle-east and Asia region to boost the development of financial technology in Bahrain.

The new fund will earmark a certain portion of its investment assets to Indian startups that have an interest in the Bahrain region and those that are planning to scale up their operations in the middle-east.

Bahrain will also run accelerator programs to bring fintech innovation to the Middle-east. “We are going to run a couple of accelerator programs. Once we identify fintech ventures which have an interest in Bahrain, then the logical next step is to set up a visit, and so we can connect them with the regulators or telecom companies or financial institutions. We will manage that through Mumbai,” said David Parker, Business Development, Financial Services, Bahrain Economic Development Board.

Parker also said that Bahrain’s Economic Development Board is talking to quite a few companies and bringing them together in the Fintech Hub in Bahrain. “The EDB joins all the different components and we look at the innovators around the world and get them to Bahrain. We are the glue that puts all the different things together. With the focus being on driving the ecosystem faster,” added Parker.

Bahrain has a strong financial industry and the country has been doing financial services for over 50 years, and so it will be able to catch up with some of the fintech developments that have happened in countries like India and Europe. “We are working with regulators and we are keen to catch up with the rest of the world on fintech development,” mentioned Parker.