US-based venture capital (VC) firm Dallas Venture Capital is raising a separate fund in India of $50 million from local investors even as it closed its main fund in the US.
The fund in India - DVC India Fund 1 - was launched to provide opportunities to domestic investors and has already raised $20 million of the total corpus, said Dallas Venture Capital.
The VC firm's main fund in the US - DVC US Fund II - closed at $80 million, higher than the targeted corpus of $75 million, it added.
DVC US Fund II plans to invest alongside its India fund in business-to-business (B2B) software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups over the next 4-5 years, it added.
Dallas Venture Capital was launched in September 2020 with an aim to fund startups in the cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence/machine learning, mobile and emerging technologies sectors in India and the US. Dallas Venture Capital was a reboot of Naya Ventures, a Dallas, Texas-based VC firm that was launched in 2011. Naya Venture invested in over 20 companies including CoreStack, Altia Systems, Kore.ai, Hyperverge and Docsynk.
The same year of the launch of Dallas Venture Capital, it roped in Abidali Z Neemuchwala, former CEO and managing director at Indian software services firm Wipro Ltd, as a venture partner.
Neemuchwala, now designated co-founder and director, said that the venture capital firm partners with startups to help them accelerate their revenues from $1 million to beyond $10 million through its DVC Advantage programme.
"We are overwhelmed by the response to our DVC Fund II and particularly pleased with the recognition as a cross-border VC by our investors as they benefit from the startup revolution that is taking place in India,” said Dayakar Puskoor, managing director, Dallas Venture Capital, in the statement.
“The extensive due diligence performed by our strategic investors has sharpened our investment thesis. The continued guidance of our strategic investors and advisors are going to help us create differentiated value for our portfolio companies,” added Puskoor.
Shyam Penumaka, partner at Dallas Venture Capital, said that the DVC India Fund intends to raise the remaining capital from institutional investors, family offices, and high net worth individuals (HNIs).
Last year, Dallas Venture Capital launched DVC Advantage, which aims to help startups in multiple areas such as product and technology strategy, executive mentorship, corporate governance, business development and talent acquisition.
“Our experience and familiarity with both US and India enable us to bring exceptional operational and growth strategies to our portfolio companies,” added Neemuchwala.
DVC Fund II has already made four bets - Lucy.ai, an AI personal assistant for businesses, Rollick, which provides solutions to original equipment manufacturer (OEM) manufacturers and dealers Citylitics, which helps stakeholders in the infrastructure market to easily identify and pursue sales opportunities and Disprz, enterprise skilling startup. DVC India Fund has also made investments in the Disprz, and anti-money laundering (AML) startup, IntelleWings.
