Foundation PE acquires 100% of Limited Partner (LP) interests in Prime Venture Partners’ Fund 1

Prime VP’s LPs earn top-decile return in 9 years; fund extended by 4 years

Singapore and Bangalore, 13 January 2022: ~ quity (FPE)~ Foundation Private E, a provider of bespoke secondary solutions across Asia and ~ (Prime VP)~ Prime Venture Partners , an early-stage India-focused VC fund, announced today that FPE has acquired all of the LP interests in Prime VP’s Fund 1 via a LP tender offer process. Prime VP’s Fund 1 is a Mauritius-based fund and the first investor in seven companies including edtech startup Quizizz, and fintech startup Happay (recently acquired by CRED). With this development,Prime VP has delivered a healthy, top-decile return to its Limited Partners in its 9th year of operation and has further extended the fund by four years. Singapore based Candor Asia Advisors Pte Ltd., a specialist in complex secondaries and GP-led deals, was the sole advisor to this transaction.

The Internet and Digitisation boom in India has triggered a corresponding boom in the Indian startup ecosystem resulting in a huge influx of capital to early-stage companies. In 2021, Private Equity-Venture Capital (PE-VC) firms invested a record $63 billion across 1,202 deals in Indian startups. While the Indian startup ecosystem has recently started witnessing a spate of technology IPOs and mergers and acquisitions, fund-level secondary transactions and extensions have been few and far between, largely because such solutions require alignment of three stakeholders - Portfolio Companies, Fund Managers (VCs) and Limited Partners.

Foundation Private Equity, started by industry veterans Jason Sambanju and Jeremy Foo, was formed in 2017 with a mission to provide innovative solutions to Limited Partners and General Partners at all points of their fund life cycle. With a flexible approach, FPE’s solutions are often highly customized in order to ensure full alignment with all stakeholders.

Prime Venture Partners is an India-focussed early stage firm started in 2012 with an Indian advisory office led by Shripati Acharya, Sanjay Swamy, Bala Parthasarathy and Amit Somani. With a view of bringing Silicon Valley style professionalism to venture investing, Prime VP’s mission is to partner early with entrepreneurs and help build world-class technology companies that are addressing some of India’s most important problems. Currently in its Fund IV of USD100 million, Prime VP is typically the first institutional investor and focuses on companies with an innovative approach to solving fundamental problems through technology. Prime VP has raised four funds since its inception and manages more than USD 250 million with investors including the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group and a top-tier university endowment, several family offices and institutions, and numerous global technology entrepreneurs.

With this fund extension, FPE now becomes the sole LP in Prime VP’s first fund that was originally raised in 2012. The companies under this fund include:

1 Quizziz:An interactive learning startup which is used by teachers in 120 countries and with more than 100 million monthly active users. It is backed by marquee investors such as Tiger Global & Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

2 Happay (acquired by CRED): A business expense, payments and travel management platform, serving more than 6,000 businesses. The company manages work-related expenses of over 1 million users globally who spend nearly $1 billion annually. Happay was recently acquired by CRED for USD 180 million in a Cash+Stock transaction.

3 Waggle: a US-based pet tech company, whose solutions feature innovative pet sensors & wearables and industry’s first cloud-based mobile app that serves as a one-stop solution for pet health, safety and fitness.

4 HackerEarth:A solutions provider to source, assess, upskill and engage software developer talent which recently recorded a 144% increase in its revenue growth in India and a 185% growth in the US.

5 Synup: A digital profile management and customer experience optimization solution for businesses. Used by thousands of companies to drive better business results, Synup is headquartered in New York City with operations in APAC, EMEA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and The United Kingdom.

6 Smartowner: A property investment management marketplace company in India.

7 Vidgyor: An Adtech platform currently working with more than 60 TV broadcasters, content owners and OTT platforms .The company provides technology solutions to manage and monetize Live & VoD content and to reach audiences regionally and globally.

Supporting Quotes

Jeremy Foo, Co-Founder & Partner, Foundation Private Equity

We are very pleased to have worked closely with the team at Prime Venture Partners to identify and execute an optimal liquidity solution for their existing LPs. The FPE team has taken a patient approach thus far with evaluating venture opportunities in India, and we are excited to be backing a very high-quality GP team and portfolio with our first transaction in India. We have strong conviction in the value that Prime VP brings to their investee companies, and are excited about the journey ahead.

Sanjay Swamy, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Priven Advisors Advisory to Prime Venture Partners

Ensuring founders have the opportunity to build their businesses to their full potential, while providing meaningful returns to our Limited Partners, is what the Prime VP team strives for as advisors. This event is a validation of the ‘concentrated portfolio with active support’ strategy that has defined our approach from Day Zero. We were extremely happy with FPE’s approach to understanding the nuances and motivations of early-stage entrepreneurs. We’re also very appreciative of the work done by Soma Ghosal Dhar at CandorAsia in helping orchestrate a smooth process for all parties involved.

Jay Zaveri, Partner, Discover at Social Capital

India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. One of the best ways to unlock the value of India’s entrepreneurial spirit is to back founders just as they are getting started. Social Capital anchored the first fund of Prime Venture Partners to tap these early stage opportunities and we are excited to see them come to fruition. We look forward to seeing what these entrepreneurs achieve in the years ahead with the Foundation PE team.

Soma Ghosal Dhar, Managing Director Candor Asia Advisors Pte. Ltd.

Such secondary restructurings offer a powerful second wind to high quality portfolios managed by pedigreed GPs, while also providing much needed liquidity at attractive return multiples to patient LPs.

About Foundation Private Equity

Founded in 2017, Foundation Private Equity has unparalleled experience delivering innovative secondary solutions to GPs and LPs across Asia. With its origins in the first dedicated secondaries platform in the region, our leadership team has reviewed over 250 GP-led secondary transactions across Asia since 2007. We partner with GPs and LPs to identify liquidity options at all points of a fund’s life cycle. For more information, please visit www.foundationpe.sg.

About Prime Venture Partners (Prime VP)

Prime Venture Partners is an India-focussed early stage firm with an Indian advisory office led by Shripati Acharya, Sanjay Swamy, Bala Parthasarathy and Amit Somani. Advised by partners with deep experience both as entrepreneurs and operators, the fund is focused on building disruptive product companies out of India. The fund addresses a much needed gap in the Indian startup ecosystem by bringing a combination of first-hand entrepreneurial experience, operating expertise and meaningful capital. Prime VP is a high conviction, high support investor and believes in backing star teams with differentiated ideas. Prime VP has a rich portfolio of category creating companies including Quizizz, Happay, MyGate, MFine, MyGate, Dozee, NiYO, Sunstone Eduversity, KredX, WheelsEye and others. For more information, please visit www.primevp.in .