Sameer Brij Verma, one of the managing directors at India-based Nexus Venture Partners, is set to leave the early-stage venture capital firm to start his own investment fund, The Economic Times reported.
Verma is in talks to launch a multi-sector, multi-stage fund that will dabble in public markets, along with taking a diversified approach towards early-stage investments, the report said. Verma, who joined Nexus Venture Partners in 2011, is expected to be at the VC firm till August-September.
According to a TechCrunch report, Verma’s inaugural fund is expected to have a corpus of at least $150 million.
Before Nexus, Verma was the founding member at Reliance Capital’s early-stage VC fund Reliance Ventures where he led investments in Paytm (stake acquired by Alipay), Healthspring (stake acquired by Columbia Pacific), Tessolve Semiconductor (acquired by Hero Electronix), Dhama Innovations (exited), and Greendust, among others.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Verma founded Breakthrough Capital, an equity-focused investment entity managing his capital. It wrote cheques for Bira91, Licious, Slice, Pristyn Care, Fi, and Red.Health among many others.
He is also the founder and managing partner at BroadBridge Capital Management, his vehicle to invest in pre-IPO opportunities, which invested in NSE & FiveStar Biz Finance.
Last year, Nexus Venture Partners, which has backed prominent unicorns such as Delhivery and Unacademy in India, closed its seventh fund at $700 million as it looks to ramp up early-stage investments in the country.
The venture capital firm invests $500,000 to $10 million in early-growth stage companies. It also makes follow-on bets in select companies.
