New Delhi, May 14 -- Homegrown private equity firm Kedaara Capital has increased its exposure to a consumer-focused company via its public markets strategy that it added a year and a half ago to run adjacent to its mainstay PE business.

Kedaara, founded in 2012 by Manish Kejriwal, Sunish Sharma and Nishant Sharma, had been focusing on growth-oriented and selective control PE bets in Indian companies since inception and started the public markets strategy in late 2024, VCCircle reported at the time.

As part of the strategy, Kedaara launched a fund to make private investments in public equities (PIPE). This fund bought shares of Mumbai-listed eyewear retailer Lenskart for about Rs 45 crore last week through open market transactions, stock-exchange data show. This comes after the PIPE fund invested Rs 10 crore in Lenskart as an anchor investor ahead of the company's initial public offering in November last year.

Lenskart also happens to be part of Kedaara's PE portfolio. The firm first invested in Lenskart via its second flagship PE fund in 2019 as part of the company's Series F funding round. It transferred part of the second fund's stake to its third PE fund in 2023 and then moved some more stake to a continuation fund in 2025. The second fund also sold some of its holdings to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority in 2023 and to Singapore state investment firm Temasek in 2024, according to Lenskart's disclosures.

Kedaara also sold part of its stake in Lenskart via the company's IPO in November last year, pulling out about Rs 414 crore. Its third PE fund now owns a 1.18% stake in Lenskart and the continuation fund holds 1.6%, cumulatively worth Rs 2,335 crore at current prices, stock-exchange data show. The PIPE fund holds a tiny stake.

Apart from Lenskart, Kedaara's public markets fund invested Rs 8 crore in helmet and automobile accessories maker Studds Accessories Ltd last year. In addition, it invested Rs 30 crore in ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company in December last year and a smaller amount in Aditya Infotech earlier this year.

The public markets fund is managed by managing directors and co-heads Prakash Gaurav Goel, Parin Mehta and Ashay Shah, according to Kedaara's website.

With its new public markets fund, Kedaara joins the likes of PE peers such as ChrysCapital, which recently expanded its investment horizon for listed companies. In March 2023, ChrysCapital launched a full-fledged vehicle under the Clarus platform to make investments in publicly-listed companies. A few other marquee alternative investment firms such as WestBridge Capital and Nalanda Capital have also built multi-billion-dollar portfolios largely through public market bets, though with an evergreen fund structure.

Kedaara is one of the leading PE firms in India. Its typical PE investments range from $75 million to $150 million, but it can pursue larger deals through co-investments. In 2024, Kedaara marked the final close of its fourth PE fund at $1.74 billion (Rs 14,500 crore then), raising the largest corpus by any Indian private equity firm until then, a milestone surpassed by ChrysCapital, which scooped up $2.2 billion last year.

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