The promoters of Indian corporate giant, Godrej Industries, have announced the establishment of a family office aimed at investing in cutting-edge businesses.
As per a recent media report citing Nadir Godrej, the family office is set to kick-start its operations with an initial corpus of a few hundred crores. The office plans to secure additional funds as and when opportunities arise.
The family is currently in the process of establishing a family office. According to Godrej, due to the diversified nature of their business, their investments are typically made through the businesses themselves.
Godrej’s consumer products arm is set to invest INR 100 Cr in Early Spring, an early stage fund launched by Spring Marketing Capital. This move comes approximately two months after reports of the investment plans surfaced.
Spring Marketing Capital, a venture capital firm, has been established by Raja Ganapathy, Arun Iyer, and Vineet Gupta. The firm specializes in investing in companies at the Series A level and beyond. Godrej is set to establish a portfolio of 15-20 startups at the pre-Seed to Series A stages with the launch of Early Spring.
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Partnering with Spring Marketing Capital’s INR 300 Cr fund may not provide the same level of autonomy as an independent fund would. It makes sense for the conglomerate to consolidate its early-stage investments under a family office.
Pirojsha Godrej, son of Adi Godrej, will be in charge of supervising the family office.
Nadir, in the past, has made personal investments in various companies, such as Hector Beverages, the parent company of the well-known traditional beverages and foods brand, Paper Boat.
In response to the growing interest of major Indian businesses to invest heavily in Indian startups, the conglomerate has made a strategic move. India’s startup ecosystem has received significant investments from major companies such as Wipro, Tata, Reliance, and Infosys.
Against the backdrop of a prolonged funding drought that India’s startup ecosystem is currently experiencing, Godrej’s family office has emerged. As per the findings of Inc42’s ‘Indian Tech Startup Funding Report, Q1 2023’, Indian startups have managed to raise a meager $3 Bn in the first quarter of 2023, marking a significant 75% decline as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.
In April 2023, Indian startups faced a significant decline in funding, with a total of $888.45 Mn raised. This marks a 66% decrease from the previous year’s April, where Indian startups had secured a notable $2.6 Bn in funding.
