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https://www.vccircle.com/idfc-securities-nikhil-vora-resigns-start-consumer-centric/

Nikhil Vora, IDFC Securities’ managing director and co-head of research, has resigned from the company to float a venture capital firm focused on investments in the consumer sector, as per a report in Times of India citing Vora.

Vora, best known as a research specialist tracking consumer sector in the country, has previously worked at ASK Raymond James and GESCO.

“I am leaving to start a consumer-centric venture capital fund, which will have a very strong operating team including a CEO of a large domestic consumer company. We will look at a broader consumption story, which is non-infra and non-financial services,” Vora told TOI.

The proposed fund will make early-stage growth investments and will have a corpus of Rs 250-300 crore (just under $50 million). The report added that the fund is backed by a group of domestic investors including Khandelwals, the promoters of financial services group Systematix.

While many PE/VC firms have invested in the consumer space in the recent past, there are just a handful of investors solely focused on consumption as a theme.

One such homegrown PE firm is Everstone. However, it has much higher ticket size of investment and has even struck few buyout deals.

Another player in the business with a similar venture investment strategy for consumer space is Future Group which has two listed firms Future Consumer and Future Lifestyle Fashions to back firms in the consumer sector.