Venture debt firm Stride Ventures closes a $200 million fund

• Venture debt firm Stride Ventures sanctioned over ₹1600 crore to over 70 companies across various sectors.
  
• Strides has diverse investments across sectors such as consumer, fintech, agritech, B2B commerce, healthtech and more.
  
• Venture debt disbursed in India last year stood at $538 million.
  

Venture debt firm Stride Ventures today closed its Stride Ventures India Fund II after raising $200 million. The fund’s portfolio includes startups like CredAvenue (Yubi), MyGlamm, Zepto, BluSmart and more.

Stride said that the new fund saw participation from leading banks, marquee family offices, corporate treasuries, sovereign funds, PE funds, insurance firms and HNIs.

"The growing investor trust in the Indian start-up ecosystem provided us with a great opportunity to develop a strong pipeline of deployments that we have utilized across various sectors. Stride Ventures goal is to continue being a preferred lender while developing innovative alternate financing solutions for founders,” said Ishpreet Singh Gandhi, founder and managing partner at Stride Ventures.

The fund saw its first close back in August 2021.

Strides has diverse investments across sectors such as consumer, fin-tech, agri-tech, B2B commerce, health-tech, B2B SaaS, mobility & energy solutions (EV).

It has sanctioned over ₹1600 crore to over 70 companies across these verticals.

“The current economic environment has made growing businesses more amenable to debt transactions than ever before, giving India's venture lending industry a chance to grow and evolve,” added Apoorva Sharma, partner at Stride Ventures.

According to an India Venture Debt Report 2022, the firm released in May, venture debt disbursals stood at $538 million last year.

The fund facilitated joint-lending structures with leading banks over three years. It claims to have built innovative alternate financing solutions within venture debt for founders to allocate capital efficiently.

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