CFA Society India

2nd Private Markets Conference

Saturday, 7th February, 2026 Hotel Taj MG Road, Bengaluru #INPrivateMarkets

Vidhana Soudha

Raising Capital in India Today:
GP's Perspectives from Strategy to Fund Setup

Session 01
SV
Sameer Brij Verma
Founder & CIO, Northpoint Capital

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • • Market efficiency has increased drastically. In 2007–09, it could take 7–8 years for a company to reach ₹100 crore in revenue. Today, we are seeing that happen in a matter of months - a clear sign of how deeply the market has evolved.
  • • This is the third generation of funds, where people are now buying deeply into the India story and, in many ways, are moving away from cross-border strategies or large global platforms to focus purely on the India market.
  • The solo GP model is still relatively new in India compared to global markets, particularly the US, where LPs are more comfortable with it.
  • • As a solo GP, you have to be careful not to let your biases affect diversification, and avoid 'momentum traps'.

"With just 2–3% of market cap coming from VC-funded companies, there is substantial room for growth. 10 years from now, 15% of market cap will be generated by the new economy, and VC will have a significant role to play."

- Sameer Brij Verma

Family Offices: Leveling Up Private Markets

Session 02
DP
Deepak Padaki
President, Catamaran

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • • Returns are only one dimension for family offices - allocation also has to balance liquidity, safety, reputation, and philanthropy, which makes the process far more complex.
  • • It is not just about looking at a company and returns. It is about going deeper into the enablers of the ecosystem, asking whether we can fund them, improve the ecosystem and still generate returns. That's the family office approach, it's very different from pure investing in India.
  • • Companies value family offices with good governance and often want them to stay through the IPO cycle to help manage market volatility.
  • • Investing in early stage funds helps in identifying some winners and then directly investing in them.
  • The right time to exit depends on residual returns. If it is a good company, you may not exit fully irrespective of the tenure, maybe just de-risk. The real question is whether the current investment offers better future returns than a new opportunity.

"Companies addressing global challenges need patient capital, and that’s where family offices can step in."

- Deepak Padaki

State of Private Equity Investments in India

Session 03
AL
Abhishek Loonker, CFA
Managing Director,
GEF Capital Partners
VA
Vasanthakumar AP
Partner, Ascent Capital
KZ
Kazi Arif Zaman, CFA
Partner, GestAlt Network

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • • Governance compounds faster than growth, making management quality and alignment critical to long-term value creation.
  • • Public market investors focus on earnings momentum while private equity investors focus on earnings capability.
  • • In e-commerce, urban play works well, but capturing the rural opportunity, the next 500 million consumers, is still not being adequately addressed by PE today.
  • • Continuation funds solve two problems: liquidity for LPs who want to exit, and flexibility for GPs to retain high-growth assets without extending the fund. This is why they are trending.

"Over the last 20 years in India's private equity industry, capital has shifted from being scarce to abundant, but quality is still not where it needs to be."

- Abhishek Loonker

Hidden Trade-offs in Private Credit Funds

Session 04
SG
Soumendra Ghosh
CIO, Vivriti Asset
Management
SJ
Saurabh Jhalaria
CIO, Alternative Credit
Strategies, Incred
SV
Subhashree Vijayaraghavan
Senior Fund Manager,
Credit Alternatives, HDFC AMC

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • • Private credit exists to provide bespoke and flexible capital, addressing situations where standard bank or public market solutions do not work.
  • • Private credit in India is still under-penetrated, at around 2-3% of GDP, compared to ~10% in the US, indicating significant headroom for growth.
  • • Increased competition and capital inflows have led to a compression in cost, with pricing coming down by nearly 100-200 bps for the same level of risk.
  • • Private credit isn't competing with banks. It fills the gap where bank risk appetite, and cookie-cutter solutions fall short.
  • Collateral should not be viewed as a proxy for cash flows. It should be assessed on whether it is meaningful to the borrower and brings them to the table to talk/negotiate.
  • • Ratings matter less in private markets because deals are bespoke to the borrower. In that context, ratings don't offer much guidance.

"Factors driving increased interest in private credit include a widening borrower base and stable regulation that has reduced interconnectedness with the banking system"

- Soumendra Ghosh

Investing in Deep Tech Sizing, Staging,
and Strategies

Session 05
AR
Arjun Rao
General Partner, Speciale Invest
SJ
Manu Iyer
Managing Partner, Bluehill.VC
SS
Shubham Sandeep
Managing Partner, Pi Venture

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • • In deep tech, velocity of TAM matters more than absolute TAM, reflecting the importance of adoption speed over market size.
  • • Science risk is hard to take because the time horizon for the science to work is uncertain. That said, every once in a while, we do take science risk as well due to intellectual curiosity and a high level of upside potential.
  • • New Age deep tech founders are now thinking of commercialisation very proactively, learning from the initial cohort of founders.
  • • Family offices are emerging as relevant capital providers in deep tech, leveraging long operating horizons and experience in building businesses over long cycles.

"With the India growth story, a significant amount of foundational infrastructure still needs to be built, and much of it falls under deep tech."

- Arjun Rao