Trident Growth Partners closes ₹1,000 cr fund, doubles down on growth-stage bets
Trident Growth Partners, founded by former senior investment professionals from Premji Invest and International Finance Corporation—Atul Gupta, Rajesh Ramaiah, and Pravan Malhotra—has announced the first close of its maiden fund at approximately ₹1,000 crore. The partners plan to lead or co-lead Series B and later-stage investments, targeting fast-growing category leaders for significant minority stakes.
While the fund is sector-agnostic, it will focus on consumer, financial services, enterprise technology, manufacturing, and healthcare.
The firm reached its target corpus shortly after securing its Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) license in July 2024. It is now exercising a greenshoe option to raise an additional ₹1,000 crore.
The fund has received backing from several institutional and private investors. Key supporters include Claypond Capital—the family office of Dr. Ranjan Pai, Chairman of Manipal Group—along with the Fund of Funds for Startups (managed by SIDBI), and the Self Reliant India (SRI) Fund. Additionally, over 30 founders from companies such as Lenskart, Policybazaar, KreditBee, Amagi, Persistent Systems, Livspace, Netcore, Addverb, Sagar Cements, and Triveni Polymers have invested, alongside several family offices and general partners from established funds.
The three Managing Partners bring over 50 years of collective investment experience. Gupta and Ramaiah previously spent 13 years investing together at Premji Invest and share a decade-long professional association with Malhotra. Their prior investments include companies from Policybazaar, Myntra, Lenskart, Flipkart, to Purplle, FirstCry, BigBasket, MedPlus, and more. Of their 40 past investments, 14 achieved unicorn status and 8 went through IPOs or M&A transactions.
With prior operational experience at firms like Wipro, Reva Electric, Applied Materials, and Lam Research, the Trident team aims to support portfolio companies in building sustainable and well-governed businesses. The partners intend to work closely with founders, offering mentorship through a wide founder network and operational support from a dedicated team of experienced professionals.
“At Trident Growth Partners, our team’s extensive investment experience across market cycles provides us with a unique perspective on macro and sectoral trends. We offer more than just funding, bringing deep operating experience, a founder-first mindset, and a robust network to support companies in their growth journey. Our focus is on backing resilient, growth-stage companies with strong unit economics that prioritize sustainability and governance”, noted Atul Gupta, Managing Partner.
The firm has made its first investment by co-leading the Series B round in Spotdraft, a SaaS company in the Contract Lifecycle Management space. A second investment is nearing closure, and the fund expects to make additional investments across its core themes in the coming months.
