New Delhi, Oct. 22 -- Homegrown private equity firm ChrysCapital, one of the largest among its peers that launched a full-fledged fund to invest in publicly listed companies last year and recently increased the corpus, has doubled down on at least half a dozen companies, VCCircle has gathered.

The PE firm, which has invested in many publicly listed companies such as Infosys and HCL Technologies in the past while churning out high returns, had floated the Clarus platform almost four years ago but officially launched the vehicle only in March 2023. The platform's aim was to bet on "undiscovered gems" in large-, mid- and small-cap companies.

The total corpus of the fund has increased to around Rs 2,000 crore from Rs 1,100 crore earlier with ChrysCapital's team itself ploughing in Rs 400 crore. The platform invested at least Rs 85 crore, or a little over $10 million, last quarter in most of its existing portfolio companies.

It bought additional shares of Ador Welding, Advanced Enzyme Technologies, Healthcare Global Enterprises, Innova Captab, R Systems International and TCPL Packaging Ltd. Clarus is estimated to have pumped in Rs 10-15 crore in each of these companies last quarter. It had bought more shares of Ador Welding, Advanced Enzyme, Healthcare Global and TCPL Packaging in the previous quarter, too.

Notably, it didn't add any company to its portfolio after crossing the 1% holding threshold for Innova Captab and FMCG manufacturer Hindustan Foods earlier this year while also investing in Star Health Insurance. Clarus is also an investor in credit rating firm ICRA.

Clarus has an open-ended mandate. This means it has no pressure related to its lifecycle ending. Typically, PE funds are closed-ended products with a lifecycle of seven to 10 years. Almost all the money for the platform has been raised domestically.

The nine companies in its portfolio make for a diversified set, with exposure to healthcare, FMCG, pharma, IT services, credit rating and research, packaging, industrials, and enzymes. The combined value of its stake in these nine companies is now over Rs 640 crore. All these companies are from the small- and mid-cap space.

The fund's managers, which include five general partners of ChrysCapital, are more bullish on mid- and small-cap companies than on large-cap stocks. While large-cap companies would make up around a third of the portfolio, mid- and small-cap stocks would account for two-thirds of the fund's allocation.

"Why we want to focus more on mid- and small-cap companies is because it is slightly easier to generate extra returns, because these are mostly uncovered companies," Soumendra Lahiri, head of the Clarus Fund, previously told VCCircle. "Beating the market becomes relatively easier for these undiscovered gems," he had added.

The names of the large-cap pickings of Clarus are not known as it likely owns less than a 1% stake in these stocks.

Clarus is believed to have bought shares of at least 15-18 companies so far and may be close to deploying much of its capital. The platform planned to make 18-20 investments, with an average ticket size of Rs 50 crore.

It also came in as one of the anchor investors on the eve of the IPO of Aadhar Housing Finance Ltd, a Blackstone-owned lender. It bought shares worth Rs 25 crore as part of the anchor book.

The fund has been following a policy under which no more than 3% of its corpus would be invested in a single small-cap stock, no more than 5% in a mid-cap company and no more than 7% in a large-cap firm.

ChrysCapital has cumulatively raised nearly $5.7 billion so far across nine private equity and continuation funds. Of this amount, it deployed around 40-45% for public market bets. Apart from IT companies Infosys and HCL Tech, its listed bets also include healthcare companies such as Eris Lifesciences, KIMS Hospitals and Mankind Pharma.

However, over the years, buyout-oriented transactions have led to a decline in allocation for public equity deals. Hence, the PE firm felt a need to come up with a separate public equities-focused fund. It is also eyeing another big-ticket flagship private equity fund soon.

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