threefour year vintage and have not been monetised so it is unclear how they will eventually pan out thereby ruling out a simple comparison with biyanis success biyani much like l capital pe arm of louis vuitton stayed true to the consumption theme which he knows best and future groups parentage by investing in brands that have strong business adjacencies to his core retailing businesses the others like a tata or a aditya birla pe are more general purpose and sector agnostic feels pwcs krishnan biyani says investments by listed investment vehicle future consumer enterprises limited earlier future ventures are not financial but strategic and complimentary to the core retail business investments in biba and designs or capital foods which he exited in 2013 or in turtle or mineral where he remains invested stem from the need to invest in brands which would strengthen his retail formats the new brands also benefited achieving scale in a shorter time the investee companies rode piggyback on the distribution footprint of future group allowing them to leverage the 300million plus footfalls the retail formats attract such a symbiotic relationship has clearly worked as the three future ventures exits of 2013 show that biyani has emerged as the most successful pe investor with returns ranging from 32 times in homegrown processed foods and consumer company capital foods to a jawdropping exit multiple of 24 in and designs designer anita dongres womens fashion label this stands out in a year when global high street counterparts found it difficult to divest their investments and return profits to sponsors those who did could only manage a modest twothree times return on investments the new industry average biyanis model is somewhat similar to global technology firms that bankroll startups working in the same ecosystem the likes of ibm capital intel capital dell ventures or nokia growth partners either invest directly or through other funds unilever corporate ventures a venturecapital arm of the worlds second biggest fmcg company has supported technology firms in life and materials sciences closer home godrej agrovet from the eponymous group invests in fledging agrobased businesses that have linkages with its core operations most corporatebacked funds aim to increase value for the parent for some the intent is to eventually acquire the startup while some strive to create a vibrant ecosystem when the investment is successful these funds have preferential access while most put their balance sheet to work biyani also deployed third party capital along with his we have invested in earlystage companies that are working on technologies aligned to our customers says anand deshpande founder cmd of punebased software firm persistent systems who has launched a new inhouse vc fund to assist innovations in social mobile analytics and cloud smac this highlights a new trend of even smaller companies getting swayed by the vc model pe arms india incs finest have their customised pe strategies some like aditya birla pe or a tata capital have a multisector fund while azim