Bahrain’s asset management firm, Investcorp has infused around USD 45 million into Indian dialysis and kidney care provider NephroPlus. This also marked the exit of one of its existing investors, the Mumbai-based SeaLink Capital Partners, which had invested USD 14 million in it earlier.
NephroPlus will use the funding to expand in more Indian cities, as well as in Middle East and Southeast Asia. At present it has 196 centers located across 116 cities. NephroPlus counts venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners and International Finance Corp, as its investors.
“While we will keep investing and cementing our position in India, we want to figure out 4-5 markets over the next few years, where significant value and impact can be created, such as Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam. Also on the agenda, is setting up joint ventures and signing operations and maintenance partnerships,” Vikram Vuppala told local business paper Economic Times.
The kidney care specialist claims to have provided two million treatments in the last year. On a revenue-sharing model, it works with leading Indian hospitals like Max Healthcare, Medanta Medicity, and Fortis Memorial Research Institute, amongst others.
“In terms of breadth and width of delivery, NephroPlus has possibly, the largest reach in India…We think, given our experience in healthcare globally, there are a lot of areas where we can add value,” Gaurav Sharma, co-head of private equity at Investcorp India told ET.
With seven Indian portfolio companies, Investcorp manages assets worth USD 28 billion in total till June this year.
Apart from NephroPlus, the Bahraini investor has put in money in non-banking financial company InCred, co-living startup ZoloStays, eye care hospital chain ASG Eye Hospitals, value apparel retailer Citykart, spice maker Intergrow Brands, and online fashion retailer Bewakoof.
Mohammed Alardhi, executive chairman of Investcorp has reportedly said that their plan is to scale up the company’s India business to USD 1.5 billion in assets under management in the next five years. The investment entity had entered the Indian market through the acquisition of the private equity and real estate investment businesses of IDFC Alternatives in January 2019. In July 2019, Investcorp had closed its maiden India-focused private equity fund at around USD 150 million as reported by local paper Mint.
“Our vision for the firm is that we want to be a respected global investment firm in the alternatives space. Any gaps we have in the alternative space, we want to fill them. So, we didn’t have an infrastructure business, we started an infrastructure business. We were not in India; we are now in India. We weren’t in China; we are now in China. In the US, we started there four decades ago and now we want to go deeper into that economy,” Alardhi told Mint.