Sistema's venture fund, which invests in high-tech companies in India and Southeast Asia.
Investment criteria:
A proven business model and/or loyal audience;
Solutions specific to the Indian market;
Startup founders heavily involved in business management;
Co-investors.
In March 2019, SAF completed its first monetisation by selling a stake in Qwikcilver, an Indian end-to-end service provider of gift card and prepaid solutions. Qwikcilver was the first Indian company to develop gift cards in India, becoming an undisputed market leader. As of March 2019, the company produced about 250 mln gift cards a year in 16 countries for 15,000 online platforms and mobile applications. Sistema Asia Fund invested in Qwikcilver in 2016 and exited three years later with solid returns on the invested capital.
In July 2019, SAF took part in the Series C funding round of Uniphore, an Indian AI-based speech recognition startup. Uniphore raised the total of USD 50 mln in the round that was led by March Capital Partners and joined by Chiratae Ventures, CXO Fund and other funds.
In 2019, SAF conducted eight additional rounds of funding for its existing portfolio assets.
High-tech companies operating in the sector of technology products and services and other types of businesses and consumer brands that use technologies as their key competitive advantage:
Consumer tech (e-commerce, healthcare, transport, media, finance and education) and Enterprise tech (IoT);
VR/AR;
Big data;
Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML).