India's apex industry body for alternative assets, the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA), honoured the key players and top performers at the IVCA Alternate Capital Excellence Awards, held on the final day of the 13th IVCA Conclave.

Creative IVCA Alternate Capital Excellence Awards 2024

Winners of IVCA Alternate Capital Excellence Awards

1. International Private Equity: Best exit performance of the year | Winner: Warburg Pincus

Narendra Ostawal, Managing Director and Head of India Private Equity, Warburg Pincus, said, "We thank IVCA for this acknowledgment. 2023 has been a seminal year for the private equity industry in India, as the year demonstrated that PE in our country has come of age. The discipline of returning money to our investors has been core to our thinking and 2023 was a great demonstration of that. India continues to be a key region for the firm, and we remain excited as we continue to back talented entrepreneurs in building sustainable businesses and contributing to India's growth story."

2. Domestic Private Equity: Best exit performance of the year​ | Winner: True North

Divya Sehgal, Partner, True North said, "Truly thankful to IVCA, for recognizing our exit outcomes. We have had 45 plus exits in the last 24 years. Last year was especially strong with six exits including two control deals, an ipo and a merger. The positive macro, strong capital markets and outstanding management teams helped us achieve this. Fingers crossed for this year."

3. International Venture Capital: Best exit performance of the year​ | Winner: Peak XV

Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Peak XV on winning the award said, "Grateful to IVCA for the recognition for our performance on exits. We feel very fortunate to have had 20+ IPOs in our journey. This is enabled by world class founders now building scale companies for and out of India. Additionally, the positive regulatory environment in India and especially SEBI's role in creating a vibrant capital market has enabled private companies to go public and for investors to complete the cycle of liquidity."

4. Domestic Venture Capital: Best exit performance of the year | Winner: Elevation Capital

Vaibhav Goel, CFO, ElevationCapital said, "We are humbled to be awarded Best Exit performance of the year by IVCA. We have been fortunate to partner with audacious founders over the years, and partner closely on their journeys to building category defining companies and generating powerful outcomes for all stakeholders. As Indian investors who have been entrenched in the countrys technology landscape for 2+ decades, we have never felt more excited about the Indian startup story than we do now. There is no better time than now to be All-In on India."

5. Private Equity: Best fundraising performance of the year | Winner: India Resurgence Fund

6. International Venture Capital: Best fundraising performance of the year | Winner: Nexus Venture Partners

K G Subramanian, Managing Director & CFO, Nexus Partners said, "We accept this recognition with humility and are grateful to our investors for the continued faith bestowed upon us and our entrepreneurs who are building market leading companies and generating the returns for our investors."

7. Domestic Venture Capital: Best fundraising performance of the year | Winners: 3one4 Capital & Epiq Capital

Pranav Pai, Managing Partner of 3one4 Capital, said, "We are building 3one4 Capital to be an exemplar in the homegrown asset management sector by demonstrating decadal-scale discipline and consistent performance.We are grateful to our investors for supporting our decision to scale our intentional approach in the Indian early-stage and enabling a successful fund raise within a quarter. IVCA has been a consistent supporter of our combined efforts to grow this industry, and we are grateful for their endorsement."

Navjot Kaur, Associate Director at Epiq Capital said, "Given that Epiq Capital II is our first India-based fund, we are truly honoured to have received an encouraging response from our investors. We raised most of the capital in a period of funding discipline. We are supported by 300+ investors and are proud to share that most of it is domestic capital. Thank you IVCA and the jury for recognizing our efforts. We stay committed to creating value for our investors and for the Indian startup ecosystem at large. We will invest in exceptional entrepreneurs that are creating the Tech Nifty50 of our country."

8. Infrastructure Fund: Best overall performance of the year | Winner: KKR"Infrastructure represents a significant part of KKR's global and Asia Pacific investment strategy, and within this, India has been a cornerstone market since the launch of our Asia strategy in 2019. We are proud to have built a market-leading platform in India and remain committed to best enabling companies, platforms and management teams to deliver critical infrastructure solutions to the individuals and communities who rely on these services across the country," said Hardik Shah, Partner and Head of India Infrastructure at KKR.

9. Real Estate Fund: Best overall performance of the year | Winner: Kotak Alternate Asset Managers

Vikas Chimakurthy, CEO, Kotak Alternate Asset Managers said, "We thank IVCA for the award. The award recognises our team's effort over the years. This is because of our investee companies' efforts who generate returns for our investors and consistent support of our LPs."

10. Private Credit Fund: Best overall performance of the year | Winner: Edelweiss Alternate Asset Advisors

"At Edelweiss Alternatives our vision is to be the most trusted & respected India Alternative Asset Advisor. Our track record both on performance and governance is well recognized, and has helped us to raise funds from Global Institutions and Domestic Clients alike. As a platform, weve raised more than 20,000 crores of capital across our private credit and real asset strategies over the last two years. We thank our clients and partners for reposing faith in us and we accept the responsibility and trust reposed in us with great humility." said Amit Agarwal, President- Private Debt, Edelweiss Alternatives.

11. Venture Debt Fund: Best overall performance of the year | Winner: Trifecta Capital

"This award is truly a testament to the strength and hard work of the Trifecta Capital team, who have worked tirelessly over the last 8 years to build this asset class from the ground up. Since launching our first fund in 2015 with Rs 500 crores, we have subsequently raised two additional funds, deployed over Rs 5500 crores in the ecosystem, and grown acceptance for the asset class. The rapidly increasing demand over the last 3 years has signaled heightened awareness and use cases for venture debt in the ecosystem. We are sincerely grateful to our investors, advisors, and the founders of 175+ portfolio companies who have consistently supported us throughout our journey of building Trifecta Capital and, with it, venture debt as an asset class."Rahul Khanna, Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Trifecta Capital.

12. New Fund Entry: Outstanding achievement of the year | Winner: Value Quest

"We are thrilled to have received the award and would like to thank the jury for considering us as a worthy candidate. We would also like to thank all our investors for their faith in us, our portfolio companies for partnering with us, as well as our team at ValueQuest for their tireless work and efforts towards the success of the fund. At ValueQuest, we continue to be big believers in the Indian mid-market space and would like to partner with entrepreneurs and management teams building quality businesses with a customer-first approach," said Pushkar Jauhari, MD & Head - Private Equity, Value Quest.

13. Exemplar ecosystem enabler award | Winner: Shri Arvind Gupta

"This recognition reaffirms our commitment to fostering a vibrant and inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem. I extend my gratitude to IVCA, premier industry body for alternate capital industry for their unwavering support and acknowledgment. This award is not a personal achievement, but a testament to the collective efforts of all those dedicated to driving innovation and growth in our economy under the leadership of our PM @narendranodi. Let us continue to collaborate and empower each other as we strive towards a brighter future for all," said Shri Arvind Gupta.

14. Lifetime achievement award Recipient: Shri Sanjay Nayar

Shri Sanjay Nayar said, "I would like to thank the jury, IVCA with whom I was associated many years ago and the PE/VC ecosystem because it's the entire community of investors that make deals possible and in building the investing ecosystem. Would love to acknowledge my most valuable stint at KKR in India in 2009 and finally retiring last year. It's massive team effort in what we built at KKR India, and it is firms like KKR and its partnership model which helps to empower teams in countries like India. I cannot but reminiscence the learnings of building businesses at Citi before that over 25 years. It does sound like a long innings but the right time to go up the risk curve and start the venture firm Sorin. Sorin will be focused on early-stage companies, and we will try and put to work our learnings over the years and bring valuable inputs to the start-up ecosystem."

15. Consistent social impact champion award | Winner: Vivriti Asset Management Private Limited

"Vivriti Asset Managementhas been at the forefront of social impact for India by intermediating large domestic and global capital pools towards last-mile financing of mid-sized and small businesses, addressing the financing gap for women entrepreneurs, and supportingimpact across SDGs. Vivriti has walked the talk by deepening debt capital markets, thoroughly measuring and mitigating ESG risk across portfolio companies, and detailed impact targeting and measurement. Our team remains committed to deepening our impact footprint with dedicated product launches planned over the next quarters. We deeply appreciate the recognition by IVCA and the jury members for this prestigious award," said, Vineet Sukumar, Founder and CEO, Vivriti Asset Management.

16. Women Impact and Inclusion Award | Winner: Ankur Capital

Rema Subramanian, Co-Founder, Managing Partner, Ankur Capital said, "We are happy to be recognised for building a high performance, rapidly scaling deep science and tech VC fund, while ensuring gender parity in its operations."

17. Consistent climate impact champion award | Winner: Aavishkaar Capital

Sanchayan Chakraborthy, Partner, Aavishkar Capital said, "Climate is a core horizontal thematic area of investments for Aavishkaar. The negative impact of climate change, especially on the livelihoods of, and risks to, the low-income population is very visible. We recognised the potential of technology innovations, and the large infrastructure requirements, to solve for climate adaptation and mitigation challenges at scale. From early investments in energy access and efficiency, water, and waste management, we have more recently invested in hydrogen technology, climate positive agriculture and are building a nature-based infrastructure platform. Climate solutions offer significant private capital investment opportunity and are essential to ensure a better world for all of us."