Mumbai-based Artha Group, on Tuesday announced the launch of Rs 450 crore micro venture capital fund.
Artha firm has raised capital for the "Artha Select Fund" from Kirloskar Family Office, the family office of former Reliance Capital chief of investment, Madhusudan Kela; British International Investment’s managing director Abhinav Sinha; Accounting firm Karnavat and Co’s Narendra Karnavat; Jashvant Raval of JCR & Co, SAT Industries; Varun Bansal of Jayashree Polymers; Rajiv Lakhotia of Shree Karni Fabcom and several other investors.
The first close of the Artha Select Fund will be announced along with its first investment shortly, the release further said. The company claims to have raised Rs 100 crore for the Select Fund in three weeks.
With the Artha Select Fund, the firm will invest in follow-on rounds of its portfolio startups. The fund will commit up to Rs 20 crore in the Series B round and additional Rs 20 crore in the Series C round in startups where Artha is already an investor. It will back 12-14 startups through this vehicle, the VC firm said in a statement.
“We see early-growth rounds as an investment opportunity to back founders at a critical inflexion point in their venture journey. With ASF, we provide our founders with the added firepower to chase metrics like revenue, positive unit economics, and profitability,” said Anirudh A Damani, managing partner, Artha Select Fund.
BII's Abhinav Sinha will also be joining the investment committee at ASF. He was already one at Artha Venture Fund (AVF).
Artha Venture Fund’s final close was announced in June 2021 at over Rs 225 crore, exceeding its initial target corpus of Rs 200 crore. The fund has made 27 investments so far, with a combined valuation of more than Rs 3,600 crores.
The firm claims that AVF has provided impressive portfolio returns to investors with a 3.61x MoIC (Multiple on Invested Capital) and 120%+ IRR (internal rate of return) as the earliest investor in these startups.
The fund has made 27 investments so far, with a combined valuation of over Rs 3,600 crore.
Artha Venture Fund's portfolio companies include LenDenClub, Daalchini, Agnikul, Everest Fleet, HobSpace, InstaAstro, Nirmalaya, and KarmaLife, among others.
Artha Group, the umbrella entity of ASF, has made investments in more than 100 startups across India, the US, Israel, Africa, and the UK. OYO, Purplle, LeveragEdu, Tala, IconBuild, Rapido, Coutloot, Chai Break, Karza Technologies, and Mobilewalla are some startups in its global portfolio.