Sanjay Nayar, co-founder of Sorin Investments and former CEO of KKR India, is backing a venture capital firm seeking to raise as much as $250 million to invest in climate tech startups, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Nayar said the fund is seeking to raise money from institutional investors. This comes nearly two months after Nayar told DealStreetAsia that his firm is mulling a few new funds, including a climate fund, as it explores various avenues in the industry.
“We have given it a thought. There are several new areas that are exciting in the industry today. We are looking at launching a climate fund. Maybe later, we could also look at mid-market private equity opportunities,” Nayar had said at DealStreetAsia’s Asia PE-VC Summit 2023.
“We would love to create a collage of funds in the years to come. We are mulling various options, talking to significant contributors and sponsors,” he added.
Nayar joined as a general partner at Peak Venture Advisors, which invests in companies in sectors including new energy, food systems, water, and climate, Bloomberg reported.
Founded by Samir Shah, who ran a multi-strategy hedge fund in Hong Kong for 10 years, Peak Venture has already backed companies including Indra Water and Avant Wood, according to the report.
Concerns around rising climate change and the growing need for sustainable solutions have led to the sector garnering investor interest and funding.
According to data from Tracxn, as of September 2022, $1.4 billion has already been invested in such companies, ranging from EVs to battery manufacturing and swapping, to companies helping corporations and individuals track their carbon footprint.
Some of the active investors in the space include Blue Ashva Speciale Invest, Climate Seeds Fund, Avaana Capital, Transition VC, and Climate Angels, among others.
Nayar’s firm Sorin, which now has a seven-member team, has raked in capital from family offices including that of KKR co-founder Henry Kravis and Hero Enterprise chairman Sunil Kant Munjal.
In August, DealStreetAsia reported that Sorin Investments had secured the second close of its debut investment vehicle at over Rs 1,000 crore (about $122 million) to invest in a spate of new-age sectors such as consumer, SaaS, fintech, healthcare and proptech, among others. The fund has a targeted corpus of $130 million with a greenshoe option of another $30 million.
The firm has so far made two investments from the debut fund. It backed climate-tech firm Uniqus Consultech, founded by former KPMG and EY executives, alongside Nexus Venture Partners and others late last year. More recently, it invested in the SaaS-enabled marketplace Venwiz in February.