Bharat Founders Fund , a venture capital fund floated by a group of over 70 Indian entrepreneurs, on Thursday said it has invested $4.5 million (around Rs 37 crore) in over 45 early-stage startups so far this year.
Launched in March this year, the fund has backed these 45 startups across software-as-a-service (SaaS), edtech, fintech, healthtech, e-commerce and Web3 in their angel and seed funding rounds at an average ticket size of $100,000. It also aims to double down its portfolio next year.
The Bharat Founders Fund (BFF) comprises a clutch of over 70 growth-stage startup founders which includes Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal (Meesho), Gazal Kalra (Rivigo), Vikram Chopra (Cars24), Smita Deorah and Sumeet Mehta (Lead School), Vamsi Krishna (Vedantu) and Saurabh Garg (NoBroker), among others.
The VC fund has recently been a part of the $2.5 million seed funding round of real estate and infrastructure decarbonization platform Accacia along with the pre-series A funding round of IoT-based logistics startup Intugine which raised $2.2 million among other early-stage ventures.
Along with capital, the fund aims to provide founders with insights and provide access to a valuable network to help startups fastrack their product development and go-to market, it said in a statement.
“BFF has reduced friction for founders to access successful founders. In the formative stage of a startup, getting task-relevant and timely advice from experienced founders can determine the slope of a startup's trajectory,” said Maanav Sagar, co-manager at Bharat Founders Fund.
The firm also targets to invest in another 50-80 companies in the coming years, along with helping such firms with resources, mentoring and guidance, and a networking platform to help founders in the first 12-24 months.
Venture capital firms have been facing a funding crunch in 2022, which has prompted them to reduce their quantum of investments. Venture capital investments by size fell about 34% to $23.2 billion in 2022 until the end of November from $35.4 billion in the same period the previous year.
In terms of the number of deals closed, 1,075 deals were completed in India in 2022 until the end of November, compared with 1,212 transactions in the same period the previous year, which was a 12% drop.