Disruptors Capital on Thursday said it has launched a Rs 120 crore early-stage venture capital fund to invest in tech startups across India, Southeast Asia and the US.
The Category-I Alternate Investment Fund (AIF) has received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), said Disruptors Capital in a statement.
VCCircle reported in November that Disruptors Capital was set to launch the fund and was waiting for the regulatory approval.
Disruptors Capital was founded by Raj Snehil Juneja, who was previously at investment bank Khetal Advisors. Prior to Khetal Advisors, Juneja worked as an economic analyst at McKinsey and a consultant at 500 Startups, among others. He has procured the Masters of Science in Economics and Management degree from the London School of Economics.
“During the course of my work, I noticed that the founders were struggling to raise institutional rounds due to structural gaps and lack of guidance during early stages of building their ventures,” said Juneja.
Disruptors Capital aims to bridge this gap for founders by supplementing capital with strategic guidance needed, in the early stages of breaking ground, he added.
Limited Partners (LPs), or investors, in the fund comprise almost exclusively of entrepreneurs-turned-investors, the statement said. Other LPs in the fund include senior corporate executives with specific technical skills including corporate development, fintech, and artificial intelligence (AI).
The fund has already participated in funding rounds of five startups alongside investors like Accel, Inventus Capital US, IvyCap Ventures and Inflection Point Ventures.
The investments include Lincode Labs Inc, an artificial intelligence (AI) vision inspection startup focused on the manufacturing industry.
Other bets include in edtech startups Purple Tutor and Playto Labs, and consumer tech startup AndOr Communication.
The fund is tech-sector agnostic and will stay away from a direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand or a food and beverages (F&B) play.
The venture capital firm's typical ticket size is Rs 50 lakh to Rs 3 crore. It prefers to come in at seed or the pre-Series A level. It invests in startups across pre-revenue and early revenue stages, or a predictable revenue stage. "We don't shy away from leading the round and we are okay to co-invest with other investors," Juneja had told VCCircle.
Micro venture capital funds are mushrooming in India as the startup ecosystem in the country become more vibrant.
As per a recent report by IVCA, AWS, and Praxis Global Alliance, the number of micro-VC funds in India has increased to 88 in 2020 from 29 in 2014.
