First Bridge India Growth Fund: backing first-generation entrepreneurs in consumer, finance and manufacturing

First Bridge India Growth Fund is a growth-capital fund promoted by First Bridge Investment Managers, a private-equity firm co-founded by KK Rathi and Vishal Gupta. The manager describes a team of ten investment professionals, each senior member carrying more than 15 years of private-equity investing experience. Across their careers at various funds, the team claims to have invested Rs 6,200 crore in 59 businesses, with 27 exits yielding a stated 47% IRR and roughly 5x money-on-capital.

Fund I, the manager’s first vintage, made seven investments and reported a gross IRR of 24.2% with a 3.2x multiple on invested capital, with roughly 75% of the Fund I corpus returned from a single portfolio exit. A significant part of Fund I was raised from seven domestic institutions, including SIDBI, NABARD and LIC.

What the fund invests in

First Bridge India Growth Fund, the second vintage, targets high-quality businesses led by first-generation entrepreneurs. Its stated sectors are consumer, financial services, manufacturing and business services, with guardrails that no more than 40% of the corpus goes into a single sector and not more than 10% into a single company. The fund launched on 31 March 2023, held its first close on 10 May 2023, and runs an eight-year tenure from first close with two one-year extensions. Its total target corpus has not been publicly disclosed.

Reported Fund II portfolio companies include Mahaveer Finance India Ltd (financial services, a 25.9% stake), OJB Herbals — the company behind the Oshea Herbals and Louis Herbals brands — which received Rs 50 crore in growth capital via Series A compulsorily convertible preference shares in 2024, Bagzone Lifestyle (the Lavie brand), LEAP India, and Glass Wall Systems, the facade-solutions company, in which the fund held a 2.19% stake at listing and later added a 0.68% stake for Rs 12 crore. In October 2025 the fund also participated in the Rs 150 crore Series B round of vehicle-finance NBFC Berar Finance.

How it works with founders

First Bridge positions itself as a substantial-capital partner: it commits meaningful cheques to ensure alignment of interests, backed by rigorous risk management and governance standards. The fit is for founders running profitable, growing mid-sized businesses in its core sectors who want an institutional partner with operating DNA. Rathi is a former Future Group executive, and the team’s earlier investee companies include names such as Au Financiers, Dixon Technologies and Capital Foods.