New Silk Route

New Silk Route Partners LLC (NSR) is an Indian private equity firm that invests in private companies in India, Asia, and the Middle East.

History
New Silk Route was initially named Taj Capital. Its founding team included, at various points (alphabetically):
 * Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, 20th finance minister of Pakistan
 * Anil Kumar, former senior partner at McKinsey & Company
 * Mark Schwartz, former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia and CEO of Soros Fund Management
 * Parag Saxena, former managing partner of Invesco Capital and Vedanta Capital
 * Raj Rajaratnam, former managing partner of the Galleon Group
 * Victor Menezes, former vice chairman of Citigroup

Kumar, Rajaratnam, and Schwartz resigned as founding partners before the firm began operation.

The firm enjoyed close relationships with both Goldman Sachs and the Galleon Group: "A month before joining Goldman’s board, Rajat Gupta began marketing a $2 billion hybrid private-equity and hedge fund vehicle called Taj Capital Partners with one of Goldman’s biggest hedge fund clients, Raj Rajaratnam." According to Fortune, "New Silk Route's original fundraising was for $2 billion (under the name Taj Capital) -- and [...] the first $600 million or so went into Galleon hedge funds."

Management

 * Anand Dorairaj, Partner
 * Jacob Kurian, Partner
 * Jens Yahya Zimmerman, Partner
 * Parag Saxena, CEO & Founding General Partner
 * Sanjeev Chachondia, Operating Partner
 * Vivek Sett, Partner

Advisory board
The fund formed a strategic advisory board in January 2012 comprising:
 * Dr. Herbert Henzler, former Senior Partner and Chairman of Europe at McKinsey & Company
 * Nina Shapiro, VP Finance at International Finance Corporation
 * Supratim Bose, President of Asia-Pacific at Boston Scientific and former Partner at New Silk Route

Investments
In 2007, it invested in Reliance Telecom Infrastructure and Ascend Telecom. In 2008, it invested in Augere, Beaconhouse School System, Destimoney, and Orissa Television Communications. In 2010 NSR invested in Café Coffee Day, Nectar Lifesciences, and Amonix.

In 2013 it invested in Moshes Fine Foods. It had large stakes in 9X Media and Ascend Telecom Infrastructure as of 2016. Its other investments at the time included VRL Logistics, Rolex Rings, KS Oils, Varsity Education Management and Vasudev Adiga’s Fast Food.