Trident Growth Partners, a newly launched growth-stage investment firm, has announced the first close of its maiden fund at over ₹1,000 crore. The fund, which received its Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) license in July 2024, is now exercising a greenshoe option to raise an additional Rs 1,000 crore, targeting a final close of Rs 2,000 crore by 2025.
Trident Growth Partners will lead or co-lead Series B+ investments in fast-growing category leaders for a significant minority stake. While sector agnostic, the fund’s investment themes include Consumer, Financial Services, Enterprise Technology, Manufacturing and Healthcare.
Trident Growth Partners has been supported by Claypond Capital, the family office of Dr Ranjan Pai, Chairman of Manipal Group, Fund of Funds for Startups (managed by SIDBI) and Self Reliant India Fund (SRI), along with 30+ founders of high-profile companies including Lenskart, PolicyBazaar, Persistent Systems, Livspace, KreditBee, Amagi, Netcore, Addverb, Sagar Cements, and Triveni Polymers. Leading family offices and general partners of prominent funds are also investors in the fund.
“At Trident Growth Partners, our team’s extensive investment experience across market cycles provides us with a unique perspective on macro and sectoral trends. We offer more than just funding, bringing deep operating experience, a founder-first mindset, and a robust network to support companies in their growth journey. Our focus is on backing resilient, growth-stage companies with strong unit economics that prioritize sustainability and governance,” said Atul Gupta, Managing Partner.
Founded in 2024 by Atul Gupta, Rajesh Ramaiah, and Pravan Malhotra, former senior investors at Premji Invest and International Finance Corporation (IFC), the team brings over 50 years of combined experience. They have actively invested in category-leading Indian companies that include Policybazaar, KreditBee, Myntra, Lenskart, Flipkart, Purplle, FirstCry, BigBasket, Amagi, Pixis, Lambdatest, Moglix, Best Value Chemicals, Gold Plus Glass, MedPlus and NephroPlus. Of their 40 prior investments, 14 became unicorns and 8 had IPOs/M&A.
The focus of the firm will be to help founders build long-term, profitable businesses with strong governance. The Managing Partners intend to engage closely with their portfolio companies by leveraging their founder network to provide mentorship to their portfolio founders, along with an experienced operating partner network that will assist companies with key functional support as they scale up.
Trident Growth Partners has already completed its first investment by co-leading the Series B round in Spotdraft, a SaaS company in the Contract Lifecycle management space and is in the final stage of closing its second investment.
