Venture capital company GVFL has made its second major buy, with an investment of Rs 11 crore in Bangalore-based iNurture Education Solutions Limited. Based out of Ahmedabad, the erstwhile Gujarat Venture Finance Limited made its sixth investment from its Rs 450-crore SME Technology Fund.
Speaking of the investment, Mihir Joshi, managing director of GVFL said, “What prompted the Rs 11 crore investment in iNurture was India’s education sector and its potential. The sector offers an assured growth in demand, recession proof nature and negative working capital. Today’s growing economy expects students to be market ready. The government’s recent policy directions and openness to adapt to this need allows players like iNurture to play a formidable role in the sector.”
He however, declined to divulge details of the equity share picked up by GVFL.
The parent of ToonSkool, iNurture offers long term animation courses to bridge the skill gap between the studio’s expectations and students’ skills and became the first company in India to launch a three-year degree course in animation.
Post-investment, GVFL intends to assist iNurture in increasing its course offerings and expand it geographically. Presently, iNurture runs around 20 centres across the country. “The company plans to utilise part of the funds to diversify and develop content in emerging sectors. The company will also establish a content studio to develop e-content for its courses offered and is aiming to launch its e-university by June 2011,” said Ashwin Ajila, managing director and chief executive officer of iNurture.
GVFL had recently announced that it had picked up a 40 per cent stake in FairTech Engineering Services Ltd for an undisclosed amount. FairTech is a new generation aerospace consulting and services company formed by a group of aerospace domain experts.
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FairTech based in Bangalore is the fifth investment by GVFL, from its SME Technology Venture Fund, which was launched in 2008 with a target corpus of Rs 450 crore. The main objective FairTech is to fulfill the needs and expectations of the global aircraft industry in the field of structural design, analysis, mid-life upgrades, modification and life extensions.
It may be mentioned here that over the span of 19 years GVFL has made 72 investments and 58 successful divestments through six venture capital funds. Many of the investments made by the company were in technologies, which were adapted first time not only in India but also in the world. As far as SME Technology Fund is concerned, GVFL has made five investments, including that of FairTech. The sixth company is in process of being funded soon.
Over 19 years, GVFL has invested in 72 companies across the country and has exited 58 such investee companies. Of the existing 14 investee companies, 12 are based out of Gujarat, Joshi said.