PruVen Capital, a fintech and insurance coverage tech enterprise fund based by former Benchmark and Citi ventures VC Ramneek Gupta, has closed a brand new $378.5 million Fund II to spend money on monetary providers and enterprise-focused startups.
This second fund is important as a result of Gupta expanded it past a company fund with one major LP – Prudential Financial – into one supported by a lot of monetary and insurance coverage LPs. Prudential Financial is the lead investor however the fund additionally consists of TIAA, Lincoln Financial, Generali, Nippon Life, Mutual of Omaha and Willis Towers Watson. Prudential was the solo LP in Pruven’s first fund of $300 million.
Gupta expects to wrap up investments from Fund I and start investing out of Fund II later this month.
PruVen competes by providing portfolio firms entry to accomplice with these high international insurance coverage firms as clients. This not solely helps them get a large first buyer, but additionally provides the LPs a first-look at rising applied sciences.
Insurance and monetary providers firms are extraordinarily know-how pushed and are desirous to not simply spend money on, however accomplice with, startups, Gupta says. He factors out that their partnership is important as a result of they’re “real businesses” with actual income and income. They are usually long-standing clients concerned in every little thing from client to B2B, and at scale, he mentioned.
This was one thing Gupta wished he had when he was at firms like Zappedy, which was acquired by Groupon in 2011. The firm was engaged on closing the web to offline loop within the day by day offers area.
Prior to that, Gupta had been a principal at ITU Ventures and accomplice at Battery Ventures and determined to get again into investing after the acquisition. During that point he thought of what would make him a greater investor.
“I kept coming back to what would have happened if somebody was able to help me with that first reference customer,” he informed TechCrunch. “I would have given an arm and a leg as a founder.”
He didn’t exit on his personal straight away, however acquired a name as a substitute from Citi, which needed him to assist construct Citi Ventures, which he did for the following 9 years. During that point, he put that “first reference customer” speculation to the take a look at and created a playbook to maintain it going.
Between 2011 and 2020, the worldwide investing enterprise workforce invested in 140 firms, together with Square, Jet.com, Docusign and Honey, the place over half of the businesses landed precise business outcomes with a Citi enterprise on account of the workforce’s efforts.
In 2020, Gupta left Citi Ventures to start out PruVen.
“I had the proof point that finding that first reference customer creates a lot of mutual value, and I had the playbook on how to do it,” Gupta mentioned. “That’s when I decided to go improve on the structure with an independent firm structure.”
That’s when he joined forces with Prudential. As an unbiased agency, he mentioned he was in a position to transfer shortly to construct an excellent greater community of LPs for his subsequent fund.
Gupta’s first fund, raised 4 years in the past, invested in firms like Bilt Rewards, Newfront Insurance, Angle Health, Contabilizei, UniteUs and Pismo, which was acquired by Visa for $1 billion in 2023.
It’s too early to debate return on funding for Fund 1, Gupta mentioned, however he did say the primary fund presently has a 10% distributed to paid-in capital (DPI).
“We feel like we have some really good winners,” he mentioned. “Obviously, it takes time for all of these to grow, mature and deliver returns. The best thing I can share with you is we do have actual DPI and money returned to our LPs. Even though it’s a start, it is a powerful signal to them that the model works.”
