Rebel Foods-Backer Lightbox returns one third of its second fund to investors

The REBEL FOODS of Faasos, Oven Story and Behrouz Biryani sold second -tier stocks and major capital to investors from Singapore Investment Corporation Temasek Holdings last December, raised 210 million US dollars. LightBox invested more than $ 26 million rebels in multiple rounds.

Sandeep Murthy, the founder and managing director of Lightbox India, said, “So far, we have returned 30 % of the capital and may take three to four years to achieve our goals.” MintEssence “Today, these companies are very simple-Rebel, Flunko, Drum and Mumbai shirts-all have well-known business models.”

According to Murthy, Lightbox’s second fund is expected to generate a total DPI (allocated to payment ratio) within three to four years. DPI shows the cumulative distribution paid by private equity funds to their limited partners, compared to their investment.

The total return of the second fund includes the contribution of LightBox to exit EmbiBe. When Reliance Industries LTD acquired its shares in EMBIBE in 2017, Lightbox obtained a three -fold return with 35 % internal yield (IRR).

Measuring return

IRR is a financial indicator for estimating investment returns and DPIs, which can help measure the performance of the fund and relative to other funds. Shapath Parikh, co -founder of the Bailiness Risk Investment Company of the second -level fund, told Mint DPI is becoming the benchmark for fund performance.

He said: “As the ecosystem matures, DPI replaces IRR and MOIC (multiple in investment capital) is the final measure of fund performance, because it represents the rewards or paper income of the realized income and assumptions.” Capital is before promising future funds.

In the past year, due to capital erosion, due to the high attention of the crash of the start -up enterprises due to the correction and governance problems, the limited partners of the venture capital company became more cautious in further investment.

Lightbox began in India in 2014. It has acquired six companies from Kleiner Perkins and SherPalo Ventures in India. In the past ten years, it raised $ 450 million. Murcer said that Lightbox sold its first fund with an eight times.

At present, Lightbox is deploying its third fund and investing in NUA, Zeno Health, CityFlo, Amaha, WayCool and TrueCaller, and plans to invest another investment this year.

Lightbox is also exploring at least $ 100 million in continuation funds to support its mature investment portfolio. Musi said the company is raising its commitment to the new fund without specific timetables. The fund will continue to support early consumer enterprises for retail, health care, financial services, staple foods, energy and public undertaking, entertainment and travel.

Everyone pays attention to profits

Musi told Mint In 2023, 10 of Lightbox’s 14 investment portfolios in India are expected to achieve profitability soon. He said that now, FURLELENCO, furniture leasing startup, digital loan Fintech Platform RUPEK and women’s health brands directly facing consumers have reached profitability.

The company said that NUA reduced cash burning by more than 50 % by optimizing the costs such as logistics and advertising expenditures. Murthy is expected to be rebels, Droom and the fleet will follow within six months.

However, all the gold boxes are gold. The responsibility of the investment portfolio Dunzo drowned $ 70 million, but there were still 30-40 full-time employees. Kabeer Biswas, co -founder and CEO, tried to find a solution for the company by selling or raising new funds, leaving Dunzo earlier this month.

Musi recently told Mint The Lightbox hopes to find a result that helps Dunzo to solve. “Any fees it have to help the company manage their employees in some way and allow everyone to move forward.”

Parikh of White Whale pointed out that it has obtained the first public off -fundraising and provided the holy grail of the startup with investors, asking the company to prove profitability, or at least a clear way.

He explained: “Although the fundamentals are improving, many investment portfolio companies have not been at that stage, leading to the delay of exit of investors in the later period.”

Murthy had previously served as Cleartrip, CEO of Cleartrip, a global online travel agency. In 2008, during the global financial crisis, he and his team turned to the company, from $ 12 million each year to burn to obtain a profit of $ 2 million within one year.

“We are very happy. Freedom,” he recalled.

However, with this success, the headquarters travel and expense management company jointly invested 26 million US dollars. As a company that is favorable, CleartRip does not need.

“It eventually invested $ 26 million in business. Once you get this money, you must do something about this. Honestly, this is the death of the business.”

This also prompted Murthy to focus on establishing its own investment portfolio, and Lightbox’s investment can be profitable.

Murcer said: “It has provided an urgent need to reset in the past two years. I have always been happy that we have not returned to rise because there is no interference.”

He attributed this transformation to the reduction of capital, and the latter forced entrepreneurs to correct curriculum without external pressure.

He pointed out: “This is a unique era, no one knocked on the door.”

However, Musi said that the cycle may be inverted quickly. With the profitability of enterprises, they are attracting major investors’ rights, and some of them are willing to inject a large amount of capital into specific companies.

“Now these businesses are favorable, and everyone is suddenly interested in them. Investors not only want to provide them with funds, but also want to provide a lot of funds.” He added.