New Delhi, Aug. 13 -- The Avendus Future Leaders Fund, a private equity vehicle managed by Mumbai-based investment bank and asset manager Avendus Group, and SBI Life Insurance have picked up a minority stake in contract research development and manufacturing company Aragen Life Sciences Ltd.

Avendus led the Rs 300-crore ($34.2 million) investment in Aragen through its Future Leaders Fund III, the asset manager said in a statement. It didn't disclose other financial terms of the transaction.

A person familiar with the development told VCCircle that the investment was made via a secondary transaction in which the promoter Gunupati Aparna Reddy (as a trustee of the Reddy Investment Trust) sold some of her stake to SBI Life and Avendus.

"The company plans to list at some point in time. The transaction happened at a discount to some of Aragen's recently listed peers," the person said, asking not to be named.

VCCircle has separately gathered that the transaction valued Aragen around Rs 12,000 crore ($1.37 billion). This means that Avendus and SBI Life likely bought a 2.5% stake. However, this could not be independently verified.

Reddy had sold some of her stake earlier this year, too, when private equity firm Quadria Capital bet $100 million on the company. That transaction, too, valued Arangen around $1.4 billion.

The Avendus Future Leaders Fund III was launched in May last year and mopped up Rs 850 crore in its first close in January this year. The fund aims to raise as much as Rs 2,500-3,000 crore.

The PE fund had made its first investment in Ahmedabad-based domestic formulations company La Renon Healthcare in February, putting in about Rs 160 crore.

The Future Leaders Fund manages assets under management of approximately Rs 3,750 crore with a focus on late-stage companies. Some of the portfolio companies include Lenskart Solutions, La Renon, Sagility, SBI General Insurance, Licious, Juspay, Zeta, Indegene, Veritas Finance, FirstCry, and Avanse Financial Services.

Aragen also counts Goldman Sachs' private equity arm as an investor. Goldman invested about Rs 235.8 crore in the company in 2021.

Aragen's revenue in 2023-24 was Rs 1,657.6 crore, compared with Rs 1,736.6 crore the year before, according to VCCircle's data and research platform VCCEdge. Operating profit fell to Rs 450 crore from Rs 513 crore the previous year.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.