Our first dedicated $250m India healthcare fund

Today, we're thrilled to announce our first dedicated US$250 million healthcare and lifesciences fund for India.

This new fund is amongst the largest for the sector in India, reinforcing our commitment to the country by bringing the total amount managed by Eight Roads in India to US$1.6 billion.

The US$250 million fund continues to build on our global focus on healthcare and technology.Our earlier India funds included a significant healthcare remit, making our first healthcare investment in 2011. With a portfolio of 25 companies spanning the entire healthcare and lifesciences value chain and amongst the broadest in the country, the decision to establish a specialized fund reflects the size and expansion of the market opportunity in India. The new fund will continue to focus on early to growth stage investments in lifesciences, healthcare services, consumer health and digital health. With this new fund, the team will make minority investments in a further 15 to 20 ambitious companies looking at both smaller investments as well as investments up to $40 million.

Daniel Auerbach, Senior Managing Partner and Head of Global Ventures at Eight Roads Ventures said: “Eight Roads has backed innovative businesses in India since 2007. The launch of this healthcare fund reflects our confidence in the evolution of the India market and our commitment to help ambitious founders scale. The Eight Roads network constitutes one of the largest venture platforms in the world, which now manages over $8 billion of capital across China, India, Japan, Europe and the US. This ecosystem lends us capacity and scale, setting up powerful efficiencies, deep domain expertise, and the ability to trace trends and understanding across geographies.”

Our close to 15 member healthcare-focussed investment team in India spans a broad range of academic and professional expertise, domain knowledge, geographical experiences, and an entrepreneurial spirit focused on helping Indian founders succeed.

Dr. Prem Pavoor, Senior Partner, Head of India & Healthcare Investments at Eight Roads Ventures commenting on the new healthcare fund for India: “Today is our day one, as we deepen our commitment to the healthcare sector in India. We have had the privilege of partnering with some of the best healthcare entrepreneurs in the country to build category defining businesses. Our aspiration is to continue backing such bold founders as India leapfrogs many other markets in delivering high-quality healthcare infrastructure, products and services. We are grateful to our founders, partners and the Fidelity ecosystem, for providing long-term and patient growth capital for our companies.”

Our healthcare portfolio in India includes category leaders such as Laurus Labs (among the world’s largest manufacturers of antiretroviral active ingredients), API Holdings - the parent company of PharmEasy (India’s largest e-pharmacy platform), Cipla Health (one of very few pure-play consumer health companies), Caplin Steriles (leading manufacturer of injectable drugs for the regulated markets), Ashish Life Science (with India’s first EU-GMP approved animal pharmaceuticals facility), Immuneel Therapeutics (India’s first cellular immunotherapy company), Plasmagen Biosciences (a top 3 provider of blood plasma products), CareStack (leading provider of practice management software for US dental clinics) and Toothsi (the market leader in clear dental aligners).

Since launching our India franchise in 2007, we have backed over 60 companies across our two main sectors of focus – healthcare and technology. Beyond healthcare, we have backed over 30 technology scale-ups in India, making 21 investments (including new and follow-on) in 2021 and will continue to partner with ambitious entrepreneurs across its focus areas of enterprise SaaS, consumer and fintech.

As investors, they have always believed in making a meaningful impact to India’s healthcare and innovation ecosystem which I believe also resonates with our company’s mission.
Siddharth Shah, MD & CEO of API Holdings
As we scaled our business, the Eight Roads’ team were thoughtful and engaged partners. Access to their global platform was invaluable as it helped us form a thorough global view of the business.
Dr. Satyanarayana Chava, Founder & CEO of Laurus Labs
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