IAS Balamurugan, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Anicut Capital
Chennai-based multi-asset alternative investment firm Anicut Capital is in the process of raising four new funds with a combined target corpus of about ₹3,000 crore, and is optimistic of closing this in the next 15-18 months.Speaking to businessline, IAS Balamurugan, Managing Partner & Co-founder of Anicut Capital said, among the news funds three are equity-focused while one is a private credit fund. We have already raised about ₹500-600 crore from Limited partners(LPs), and expect to close these funds in the next 18 months, he said.Nearly 60 per cent of the capital will be deployed towards the debt fund while the rest will be split across the three equity funds- early-stage, late stage and a Series A fund. We are seeing good interest from domestic institutions, family offices and international institutions too, Balamurugan said in an exclusive chat.Anicut’s debt investment strategy is focused on specific use cases, including supporting promoters in various financial activities like acquisition financing, buyout financing and bridge financing.“We prefer companies that are cash-flow positive and are a little light on debtor days. We don’t want to be in a business where you do the entire business on credit,” he added. For equity, the company is largely looking at consumer goods, financial services and some manufacturing but is not restricted strictly to these sectors. As for the cheque sizes, Balamurugan said that the average disbursements in equity will be in the range of ₹20-₹80 crore while for debt it would be in the range of ₹30-₹100 croreMeanwhile, the company has seen a good appetite in the market for its new private credit fund - Growth Fund IV- that it closed in December 2025. It has already deployed over 90 per cent of it with only 5-7 per cent of the corpus remaining. Currently, the firm’s AUM stands at around ₹4,500 crore. Anicut Capital currently manages a total of 6 funds in its portfolio, which are evenly split between three private credit (debt) funds and three equity funds.On the wider venture capital market, Balamurugan said that foreign LP appetite for India has weakened over the past 9-12 primarily driven by geopolitics, oil prices and macroeconomic conditions. On the macroeconomic front, Balamurugan noted that India may no longer be the default attractive destination for global investors compared with a year ago, but this is more on a relative basis compared to other attractive global markets and is also cyclical, he said. On a long-term, this will result in a rise in domestic capital pools from, HNIs, family offices and institutions, he added.Anicut Capital’s portfolio spans consumer, tech and lifestyle brands such as Wow! Momo, SUGAR Cosmetics, Wingreens, Blue Tokai, ShareChat, mcaffeine along with newer bets like D2C home-fragrance brand Goodmelts.Interestingly, the firm has also been a long-time investor in Tamil Nadu-based dairy brand Milky Mist, which is close to go live with its IPO. “We also plan to stay invested,” says Balamurugan.He also added that the recent drying up of the IPO market has also created opportunity for late stage investing with companies that are unable to go public willing to raise private capital, offering investors discounts while they wait for public markets to recover.Published on July 20, 2026
