NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, September 9, 2013

Krishnamurthy Vijayan, the former executive chairman of JP Morgan Asset Management India, has launched an impact investment fund that will invest in India’s livelihood and skills development space. The Rs 250-crore fund, Charioteer Fund-I, will be a five-year fund with an extension of a further five years, and will look to invest between Rs 1 crore and Rs 10 crore in micro-enterprise clusters.

The investment sweet spot will be Rs 2 crore, according to chief executive Vijayan. “We feel that impact investing is the only route to create productive employment. So far, it is largely being done by international money, and there are very few domestic funds operating in the space,” he said.

The launch of the latest fund, which has been registered under market regulator SEBI’s Category-1 Alternative Investment Fund, follows the launch of Contrarian Capital Partners India, the $50-million (Rs 330 crore) early-stage fund founded by former Yes Bank group president and co-founder Somak Ghosh this April. “It’s a very attractive space, compared to mainstream investing, since there isn’t too much capital chasing too few deals, as it is in the latter,” Ghosh said.