Seed-stage venture capital firm Gemba Capital, which has backed the likes of insurtech firm Plum and alternative investment platform Grip Invest, has launched its second fund targeting a corpus of Rs 250 crore ($28.9 million), the firm said on Tuesday.
Gemba Capital invests at the seed and pre-seed stages in scalable tech startups and has backed over 50 startups in fintech, consumer tech, and B2B platforms since its inception in 2018. Some of its portfolio companies include Wint Wealth, Strata, Navadhan, Zuper, Showroom, Smartstaff, ClickPost and LightFury.
The second fund will invest in 30 early-stage ‘platform-first’ businesses with a first cheque of Rs 5 crore and a 30% reserve ratio for making follow-on investments.
Gemba Capital aims to close the second fund by the year-end.
Its first fund was launched in 2022 with a corpus of Rs 70 crore raised through investments from family offices, founders, and CXOs. It has an average cheque size of Rs 2 crore.
“We are now looking to partner with institutional LPs for our Rs 250-crore Fund II. The Indian early-stage startup ecosystem needs more institutional capital to be deployed through single-stage VC funds like us,” Adith Podhar, General Partner at Gemba Capital, said.
Despite the gloomy global economic landscape, investors are increasingly raising capital to invest in Indian companies, aiming for significant returns.
According to data from DealStreetAsia DATA VANTAGE’s latest report India Deal Review: Q2 2024, pre-Series A and Series A deals raised $350.3 million in Q2, registering an increase of about 31% over the previous quarter. The volume of such deals, too, increased to 76 from 66 in Q1. Pre-seed and seed-stage deals cumulatively raised $190 million in Q2, registering an increase of 14% from Q1.
Earlier this month, Yali Capital, a venture capital firm floated by Cosmic Circuits co-founder Ganapathy Subramaniam and former Blackstone executive Mathew Cyriac, launched a Rs 810-crore ($97 million) fund to invest in early-stage deeptech startups in India.
Previously, Stellaris Venture Partners, an early-stage investment firm and backer of Indian unicorns Mamaearth and Glance, was reported to be on the road to raising its third fund, targeting a corpus of about $300 million.
Among other investors which raised capital this year, Anicut Capital closed a $36-million equity continuum fund last week for IPO-ready startups. The firm said in a statement that it wants to invest in companies preparing to go public over the next 2-4 years.
