New Delhi, Aug. 7 -- Key investment bankers from Jefferies and Kotak Investment Banking are leaving their firms for various opportunities; ReNew is seeking to divest from its hydropower unit; Impact Fund Denmark is set to strike a deal in Greencell Mobility; Peak XV is eyeing a bigger stake in a children's footwear brand; Girish Mathrubootham's Together Fund is raising its third fund; and healthtech startup Practo is possibly discussing the acquisition of HealthPlix, according to various media reports.

Jefferies, UBS Securities

Jefferies investment banker Ashutosh Prajapati is moving on from the company to join UBS Securities as the new head of equity capital markets for India, according to a Moneycontrol report.

Prajapati, director at Jefferies, is likely to join the Swiss investment bank later this year, the report said, citing sources. UBS may also hire for a few senior roles in other verticals.

Prior to his four-year, three-month tenure at Jefferies, Prajapati had stints at Edelweiss Financial Services, Morgan Stanley and Ruby Capital, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Kotak Investment Banking

Kotak Investment Banking dealmaker Rajat Ranjan is stepping down from his role as the managing director and head of Digital and Robotics Team (DART), according to a Moneycontrol report, as he looks to pursue new opportunities outside the firm.

The veteran dealmaker has conveyed his decision to the leadership as he seeks to pursue new opportunities outside the firm, though the exit is not immediate and includes a transition period, Moneycontrol reported, citing sources.

Ranjan plans to become an entrepreneur and start his own venture, the report said. An alumnus of FMS Delhi, Ranjan has more than two decades of experience and joined Kotak in 2005. The DART team advises and covers firms in the broader Indian internet economy.

ReNew

ReNew is looking to sell its hydropower unit for around Rs 1,000 crore ($105 million) after acquiring it from Larsen & Toubro five years ago, according to The Economic Times, which cited sources.

The subsidiary owns hydroelectric power projects in the hill state of Uttarakhand. A potential deal could see Nasdaq-listed ReNew completely exit the hydropower generation business, the report said.

ReNew will look to sell commissioned assets it operated for the past few years to generate capital for starting new projects. The transaction could attract private firms in the hydropower generation space including JSW Neo Energy, Adani Power, Torrent Power, KKR-backed Serentica Renewables, and LNJ Bhilwara, who are likely to be approached, according to ET.

Greencell Mobility

Danish development finance institution Impact Fund Denmark (formerly IFU) is set to acquire a 15-20% stake in electric bus operator Greencell Mobility for around Rs 500 crore (around $52.5 million), according to The Economic Times.

This comes amid investors increasingly looking to invest in companies that are electrifying urban public transport.

The potential deal could value Greencell, which is backed by Eversource Capital and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), at Rs 3,000 crore (around $315 million), the report said.

Greencell has contracts to operate 3,300 electric-powered buses in 30 Indian cities. The contracts are multi-year concessions from state transport authorities that have the backing of central government subsidy schemes.

Aretto

Venture capital firm Peak XV is in discussions to raise its stake in children's footwear startup Aretto, according to a DealStreetAsia report.

Aretto focuses on children's footwear, designing patented growth adaptive shoes that expand up to 3X as children's feet grow, according to the report.

The brand is available across online marketplaces including Myntra, Amazon, FirstCry.com (BrainBees Solutions Ltd.), Nykaa, Flipkart and Tata Cliq, and retails through 46 physical stores across India, with further expansion underway.

Together Fund

Together Fund, an AI-focussed venture capital firm founded by Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham, has kicked off discussions to raise $150-170 million (around Rs 1,429-1,619 crore) for its third fund (Fund III), according to a Moneycontrol report, citing sources.

The VC firm plans to double down on startups building in artificial intelligence. Together Fund is also evaluating the possibility of increasing the corpus to around $200 million, the report said, noting that a final decision has not yet been made.

Portfolio companies including Emergent, Composio, Rocket.New and Rapid Claims have all scaled rapidly and continue to attract follow-on funding, paving the way for Together's next, larger fund.

Healthplix Healthtech startup Practo is in discussions to acquire healthtech SaaS startup HealthPlix for a deal value expected to be in the range of $25-30 million (around Rs 238-286 crore), according to Inc42, citing sources.

HealthPlix's cofounder Sandeep Gudibanda reportedly denied Inc42's report, stating that the startup is not in any acquisition talks.

However, the report said that due diligence process was underway and that the deal was expected to close in a few weeks. The deal would help Practo expand its enterprise healthcare software business by complementing its patient-facing platform with HealthPlix's EMR and clinical workflow solutions, the report added.

Founded in 2014 by Sandeep Gudibanda, Raghuraj Sunder Raju, and Prasad Basavaraj, HealthPlix provides EMR software that enables doctors to maintain digital patient records, streamline consultations and manage clinical workflows.

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