Early-stage venture capital firm Kae Capital, which has backed companies like consumer nutrition platform Healthkart, on-demand manufacturing network Zetwerk, and lendingtech startup Loantap, among others, has made the final close of its Winners Fund II (KWF II).
The VC firm said it has raised $50 million (around ₹410 crore) for the Winners Fund II, which was launched in mid-2020.
For this vehicle, it raised capital from Velo Partners, KKR’s co-founder and co-executive chairman Henry Kravis, 360 ONE (formerly IIFL Wealth & Asset Management), Tata 1MG’s co-founder and chief executive Prashant Tandon, Tata 1MG’s chief operations officer Tanmay Saksena, HealthKart founder Sameer Maheshwari, Max Healthcare founder Abhay Soi, and DSP Group founder Hemendra Kothari.
Ajanta Pharma managing director Yogesh Agrawal, Sanket and Apurva Parekh of Pidilite Industries and VM Thapar Family Office also joined the fund as its limited partners.
The fund is looking to invest in 20 companies, which are a part of its previous funds. It will participate along with growth stage funds in Series B, C and D rounds of such companies. It has already invested in companies like HealthKart, Wysa, Brightchamps and Disprz from this fund.
The VC firm, however, will look to make investments in companies outside of its portfolio as well. “Being pioneers of early-stage investing in India, we’ve seen the ecosystem grow and see enough merit in being involved for as long as possible in a company’s lifecycle. We have launched this fund in order to continue backing our best founders, alongside other successful founders in the ecosystem, who are not yet a part of the Kae family,” said Sasha Mirchandani, founder and partner at Kae Capital.
Kae, which was set up by Mumbai Angels co-founder Sasha Mirchandani in 2012, is a sector-agnostic venture capital firm which invests in pre-seed to pre-series A funding stages.
It is an early-stage investor in many companies such as Porter, Zetwerk, HealthKart, Nazara, and Tata 1MG, among others. To date, it has invested in 81 startups, with a portfolio enterprise valuation of $8.76 billion.
It has also made 14 exits. It has offices in offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru.
