Cloudnine partners with India Value Fund Advisors

IVFA invests Rs 400 crores to buy minority stake in Cloudnine

India Value Fund Advisors (IVFA) has invested Rs 400 crores for a significant minority stake in Cloudnine, joining existing investors Matrix Partners India and Sequoia India, who had invested in Cloudnine in its initial phase of growth.

Siddharth Dhondiyal, MD of IVFA and Sanjay Arte, Partner at IVFA have also joined Cloudnine’s Board as Directors.

This would be the third round of fundraising for Cloudnine. The company had raised Rs 100 crores ($16 million) in its second round led by Sequoia India and existing investor Matrix Partners India in 2013. Matrix had invested Rs 45 crores in the company in 2011.

Cloudnine is IVFA’s eighth investment in the Indian healthcare industry with prior investments in Care Hospitals, Biocon, TTK Healthcare, DM Healthcare, Manipal Hospitals, Trivitron Healthcare and Syngene.

Cloudnine is a multi-city chain of women & child focused hospitals specialising in obstetrics, gynaecology, fertility and neonatology. From a single hospital in South Bangalore, Cloudnine has expanded its operations to ten hospitals spread across Bangalore, Chennai, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune.

Dhondiyal said, “We have been closely following the evolution of new healthcare delivery models in India and tracking the growth of Cloudnine over the last few years. We are very excited to partner with Matrix, Sequoia, the founders and the management team of the company to support the next phase of the company’s growth. Cloudnine is a trusted brand built on the twin pillars of clinical excellence and great customer service. The focus of the partnership and investment will be to further strengthen the core value proposition of the Cloudnine brand and extend the company’s leadership position in the women & child healthcare services segment as the company builds out a pan-India footprint. This deal showcases the IVFA investment philosophy of working with entrepreneurs and management teams looking to build high quality, globally competitive companies that are admired by all stakeholders. “

Expressing his views on the investment, Rohit MA, MD, Cloudnine said, “We are delighted to partner with IVFA. IVFA’s expertise in building world-class enterprises, deep understanding of the healthcare sector and ability to provide long term strategic capital make them an ideal partner for our next stage of growth. Our existing investors Matrix and Sequoia, have reaffirmed their belief in us by retaining their stake, further strengthening our vision to innovate and deliver on our core strengths. We will be looking to invest at strategic opportunities to build out capacity and disruptive customer service and medical tech to enhance the overall experience further.”

“As the first institutional investor in Cloudnine, it has been an absolute delight to watch the company scale from a single hospital to a multi-city well known chain and we congratulate Dr Kishore and the management team on this achievement and welcome IVFA to the partnership,” added Avnish Bajaj, Co-founder and MD, Matrix India.

“We are delighted to welcome IVFA on the board of Cloudnine. We are excited at the opportunity for Cloudnine to be the leading women and child care specialist hospital chain in the country and are happy to be associated with the entire Cloudnine team in this journey,” said GV Ravishankar, MD, Sequoia Capital India Advisors.