Consumer sector-focused homegrown venture capital firm Sauce.VC has hit the final close of its third fund that it had floated in May this year.
The early-stage investor has received commitments worth Rs 365 crore ($43 million), about 46% higher than its initially targeted corpus of Rs 250 crore. It received market regulator SEBI’s in-principle approval for the category-II alternative investment fund (AIF) in March this year.
“This fund was oversubscribed 3x in four weeks and it was overwhelming to raise more but right sizing was important,” Manu Chandra, founder, Sauce.VC, said in a post on LinkedIn.
The latest vehicle has reportedly been backed by about 95% of its capital from domestic investors, with nearly 80% from its returning limited partners. These include Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan’s family office Pratithi Investments and Marico promoter Harsh Mariwala’s Sharrp Ventures, among others.
“The decision to downsize was not easy but is more a reflection of how we intend to build Sauce.vc for the long term while staying true to our stated strategy. I feel as an early stage fund we have a small but valuable role to play along with later stage investor partners,” he added.
Through its previous vehicles, Sauce.VC has backed companies such as men’s innerwear brand XYXX, clean label food The Whole Truth Foods, travel lifestyle accessories brand Mokobara, personal care brand Innovist and petcare platform Supertails.
The New Delhi-based firm rolled out its first fund in 2019 with a target corpus of Rs 60 crore. It launched its second vehicle in 2021 with a fund size of Rs 158 crore. Earlier this year, it also closed Sauce Continuity Fund with a corpus of Rs 263 crore to back select winners from its two seed investment vehicles in their Series A to Series C round.
Through the latest vehicle, Sauce.VC intends to back about 15-16 early-stage companies, VCCircle reported previously. It primarily invests in startups in the food & beverage, personal care and apparel/lifestyle segments.
