Oister Global runs private-market funds that buy existing stakes in late-stage Indian startups, and it has now launched ACE Fund III with a target corpus of ₹500 crore, including a ₹250 crore greenshoe option. That matters because India has built a lot of startup wealth on paper, but actual liquidity between early funding rounds and public listings is still patchy. Founded in 2022 by Rohit Bhayana and Sandeep Sinha, the Gurgaon-based firm is betting that secondaries won’t stay a niche corner of venture finance much longer.
And this isn’t Oister’s first swing. Demand for its earlier vehicles was strong enough to justify a third dedicated fund, with domestic investors doing most of the heavy lifting.
What is ACE Fund III and how does it work?
ACE Fund III is a late-stage startup secondaries vehicle. Instead of writing fresh primary cheques into a company’s balance sheet, Oister buys existing shares from people who already hold them — founders, employees, early investors, or funds that want an exit before an IPO or strategic sale.
That changes the transaction in an important way. The company being bought into doesn’t necessarily raise new money. What changes is the shareholder base. Sellers get liquidity. The cap table gets cleaned up. A new investor gets exposure to a business that’s already operating at scale and is closer to a clear exit event.
Oister’s pitch to buyers is straightforward. It wants to invest in high-growth, late-stage companies that are profitable or near-profitable and have visible routes to liquidity through IPOs, strategic exits, or later funding rounds. The firm frames secondaries as a way to enter late but still get in early enough to capture value creation before a public-market or acquisition event resets pricing.
For investors, the structure is closer to curated access than a total black box. Oister has described its approach as giving backers directional visibility into the kind of businesses it intends to buy, while using an institutional six-step underwriting process to screen deals. In plain English: it’s trying to remove a lot of the messy manual work that usually comes with off-market stake transfers. That includes sourcing sellers and pricing private shares. It also means running diligence and figuring out whether there’s a real exit path or just a nice story.
Who founded Oister Global and how is it positioned?
The founding story
Oister Global was founded in 2022 by Rohit Bhayana and Sandeep Sinha. The firm was built on the investing base of Lumis, the platform both founders had already spent years building in India’s private markets. That part matters. Oister didn’t pop up as a first-time fund manager trying to surf a trend. It came out of an existing network of founders, GPs, family offices, and private-market relationships.
The strategy also makes sense in the context of where the Indian market is now. There are more mature startups. There are more long holding periods. And there’s more pressure on early backers to return capital.
Why the founders have market fit
Bhayana and Sinha aren’t career newsletter people pretending to be allocators. Bhayana earlier served as CEO of GE Software Solutions and has spent years investing and building through Lumis. Sinha’s background includes leadership at 3Com Technologies and the global technology leadership program at GE. Between them, they bring operator experience and long exposure to private-market dealmaking. That matters here.
Their wider investing track record is one of Oister’s biggest credibility signals. Across their broader careers, the founders have deployed more than $700 million across asset classes, launched 9+ funds, and backed 100+ portfolio companies. That doesn’t guarantee returns. But it does explain why Oister can show up as a buyer in sensitive secondary transactions where sellers care about confidentiality, speed, and cap-table fit.
What Oister has already done
Oister’s secondaries franchise has already invested in startups including BlackBuck, Servify, M1xchange, Kuku, and Purplle. Across the broader secondaries book, it has also backed names such as OfBusiness, Shiprocket, and BlueStone.
Half of ACE Fund I’s portfolio companies have already reached public-market outcomes through listings, DRHP filings, or exits. Those portfolio companies posted 32% year-on-year revenue growth and a 54% expansion in margins. Those are the numbers Oister wants prospective investors to focus on: not just liquidity, but liquidity into businesses that still look operationally healthy.
The fundraising details behind the new vehicle
The immediate headline is simple: ACE Fund III is targeting ₹500 crore, and that figure includes a ₹250 crore greenshoe option. The launch follows ACE Fund II, which was oversubscribed 2x and closed at ₹400 crore against its original target.
That takes total capital committed across the ACE franchise past ₹1,000 crore. Oister has also said that nearly 98% of the capital raised across the ACE series has come from domestic investors. That's much higher than the average mix across India’s wider alternative investment fund market.
How Oister compares with other secondaries funds
This category is getting crowded, but not evenly crowded.
The most obvious large-format rival is 360 ONE Asset, which launched a much bigger ₹4,000 crore secondary fund to buy existing stakes from investors seeking liquidity. International specialists have also been active in India-focused secondaries, including TR Capital, Foundation Private Equity, and NewQuest Capital. So Oister isn’t alone in spotting the trade.
Its differentiation is narrower and more credible because of that. Oister is focused on late-stage private companies rather than trying to be everything to everyone across secondaries. It’s also focused on domestic capital and curated deal selection. Startup-specific cap-table situations, where timing matters a lot, are central to the pitch. Against legacy alternatives — waiting for an IPO, forcing a strategic sale, or arranging one-off off-market stake transfers through brokers — that’s a cleaner product.
Why ACE Fund III matters for startup liquidity
This third fund matters because it turns a one-off market need into a repeatable product. Founders and early investors in India have been stuck in an awkward middle zone for years: too mature for early-stage narratives, not always ready for the public market, and still carrying cap tables shaped by old rounds.
A dedicated secondaries pool gives them another option. Not emergency money. Not a down-round workaround. Just structured liquidity.
That can change behavior inside companies. Employees can sell some stock before an IPO. Seed and Series A funds can return capital without waiting forever. Founders can tidy up ownership without opening a fresh primary round they may not need. Newer investors get into a proven business with more operating history and a shorter route to exit than a typical early-stage bet.
Bhayana’s broader thesis is that secondaries in India are becoming an institutional-grade strategy, not just a liquidity side hustle. If he’s right, this launch won’t be remembered as just another fund close. It’ll look more like a sign that India’s private markets are finally building a real exit layer between venture rounds and public listings.
Why are India secondaries funds growing now?
The macro setup is doing a lot of the work.
India’s private markets absorbed roughly $429 billion of PE-VC investment between 2014 and 2024. A big chunk of that capital is now old enough to need exits. Bain has noted that about $108 billion invested from 2014 to 2018 has crossed the decade mark, while another $177 billion from 2019 to 2021 is moving into harvest mode. That’s a lot of inventory.
At the same time, exit timelines have stretched. The median IPO age has climbed from 6.9 years to 10.7 years over the last decade. That delay leaves founders, employees, and funds holding valuable but illiquid paper for longer than they expected. Secondaries step into that gap.
There’s also a scale argument. Oister estimates India’s annual secondary opportunity could reach as much as $20 billion. That doesn’t sound crazy anymore. Bain’s 2025 private equity work showed India hit about $33 billion in exits in 2024 and became Asia-Pacific’s biggest exit market by value. In the region more broadly, secondary transactions have already become the largest exit channel by value.
And one more thing. Domestic money is getting more comfortable with private markets. That’s important because local capital tends to understand founder behavior, listing cycles, and the weird timing of Indian exits better than distant allocators do. If that comfort keeps deepening, startup secondaries could move from occasional dealmaking to a standard portfolio-management tool.
Is ACE Fund III arriving at the right time?
It probably is.
The Indian startup market has enough mature companies now, enough delayed exits, and enough investor fatigue to support specialized liquidity funds that do one thing well. ACE Fund III is really a bet that startup liquidity itself is becoming a durable asset class in India. What to watch next is deployment discipline — not just whether Oister can write cheques, but whether it can keep buying into companies that are actually close to real exits.
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FAQ
– What is the size of ACE Fund III?
ACE Fund III is targeting ₹500 crore, and that number includes a ₹250 crore greenshoe option. It’s Oister Global’s third dedicated secondaries vehicle, launched after ACE Fund II closed at ₹400 crore and was oversubscribed 2x.
– How does Oister Global’s secondary fund model work?
Oister buys existing shares in late-stage private companies from current holders instead of putting fresh money directly into the startup. That gives liquidity to sellers such as founders, employees, or early investors. New backers get exposure to businesses that are typically closer to IPOs, strategic exits, or later-stage fundraising.
– How experienced are Oister Global’s founders?
Oister was founded in 2022 by Rohit Bhayana and Sandeep Sinha, both of whom came into it from Lumis and years of private-market investing. Bhayana previously led GE Software Solutions, while Sinha held senior roles at 3Com Technologies and earlier worked through GE’s leadership system.
– Why are startup secondaries becoming a bigger market in India?
Because India now has more mature startups than it has easy exit routes. With PE-VC investments from the last decade aging, IPO timelines stretching past 10 years on median, and an estimated $20 billion annual secondary opportunity, secondaries are becoming a practical way to create liquidity without forcing a new primary round or waiting indefinitely for a listing.
