KKR-backed Avendus Capital has made its first bet from its third private equity fund, acquiring a minority stake in Indian pharmaceutical company La Renon Healthcare from two existing investors for $18.3 million.
La Renon counts ChrysCapital, Peak XV, and A91 Partners among its backers. The identity of investors who sold their stakes in the transaction could not be ascertained.
The deal comes just weeks after Ritesh Chandra, managing partner of Avendus Future Leaders Fund, told DealStreetAsia that the firm was set to make its maiden investment in an Indian healthcare company.
The SEBI-registered Category-II alternative investment fund (AIF) is targeting a Rs 3,000 crore corpus, including a Rs 1,500 crore greenshoe option. Avendus aims to close the fund by mid-2025.
Launched in 2019, the Future Leaders Fund platform has over Rs 1,850 crore in assets under management across its predecessor funds. Its second fund closed in 2022 at $200 million, while its first fund raised $50 million in 2019 to back companies in India’s new economy sectors.
Its portfolio companies include eyewear retailer Lenskart, snack maker Bikaji Foods International, digital payments startup Juspay, and SBI General Insurance.
Established in 2007, La Renon caters to therapy areas of nephrology, critical care, neurological disorders, urology, gastroenterology, respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic diseases and gynaecology.
According to Tracxn, the company had a revenue of Rs 1,170 crore and a profit of Rs 117 crore as of March 31, 2023.
In April, ChrysCapital invested $70 million in La Renon Healthcare, adding it to its growing list of healthcare companies such as Mankind Pharma, Torrent Pharma, Zydus Cadula, and Inas Pharma.
Avendus’s investment in La Renon comes amid rising investor interest in the healthcare sector of India. A cumulative $5.67 billion flowed into Indian healthcare firms — from traditional hospitals to medical robotics startups and healthcare financing companies — last year, according to data from research firm Venture Intelligence.
Moreover, the lion’s share of the healthcare investments in India last year came from PE firms — around $5.27 billion across 50 deals. While this is only a fraction of the overall $27.7 billion invested by PE firms in the country in 2024, healthcare was their top target sector, according to Venture Intelligence data.
