Sailesh Tulshan, the personal investment adviser to the founders of homegrown e-commerce major Flipkart, is launching a venture capital fund with a target corpus of $50 million, says a media report.
The fund, 021 Capital, which is awaiting approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India, has already received soft commitments for about 40% of the corpus, The Economic Times reported, citing two unidentified people.
Tulshan could not be immediately reached for comments.
The fund is in talks with both domestic and overseas investors. It is also expected to get on board Flipkart’s group chief executive Binny Bansal, who has also invested in other venture capital firms, including Blume Ventures, India Quotiet, Stellaris and Pi Ventures.
The fund, which is expected to invest $2 million, each, in every startup it decides to back, will look for opportunities in the biotechnology, agriculture and internet sectors.
Tulshan is the founder of Tsai Shen Capital, an investment advisory firm for individuals and large family offices. He was earlier associated with family office Client Associates and private lender HDFC Bank. He works with Binny and Sachin Bansal full time to help them identify startups to invest in.
The Bansals have invested in over 18 startups, including News in Shorts, Ather Energy, Team Indus, MadRat Games and SigTuple Technologies.
The name 021 Capital was reportedly inspired by a book written by American entrepreneur and venture capitalist and political activist Peter Thiel.
021 Capital joins a bunch of venture funds in India that have either hit their first or final close, or are in the process of raising funds.
Earlier this year, IDG Ventures, Endiya Partners, Stellaris Venture Partners and Fireside Ventures, Menterra Venture Advisors and WEH Ventures had either made the first or final close of their funds.
Global venture capital firm Sequoia Capital had topped up its fourth India-focused fund for the second time by $125 million.
