‘India to see next set of IPO-bound firms in niche sectors from tier-II markets’

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Mint. To capture the growing opportunities in pre-IPO and late-stage companies, Sharma is also evaluating a secondaries fund. “While it’s too early to comment on this, we are definitely looking at these options as there is a lot of demand for secondaries now," he said.

Sharma, who has co-founded VC funds such as Venture Catalysts and 100Unicorns, believes that many startups from the smaller towns like Ambala and Silvassa often go unnoticed due to lack of awareness and resources to scale up. Through his funds, he aims to provide mentorship to these startups until they reach a valuation of $100 million. Also read | Startups, including early-stage, focusing more on fundamentals than growth Since most of the known startups or unicorns—companies with a billion-dollar valuation—come from 15-odd cities, he emphasized the addressable opportunity beyond these geographies where founders require more assistance to scale up.

He expects the next set of unicorns to come from varying sub-sectors which will drive India’s goal of becoming a $7 trillion economy by 2030. In the pursuit of that goal, Sharma said this could pave the way for specialized funds in the market to accelerate that growth. “Some sectors like fintech, SaaS (software-as-a-service) and property tech may be a larger growth driver and require additional capital to disrupt the ecosystem." Sharma oversees sector-specific funds such as Spyre, a prop-tech fund, and Beams Fintech.