Early-stage venture fund Leo Capital will be floating a new fund of $125 million following two successful fund launches in the past, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
Over the past three years, Leo Capital has raised $106 million for two funds seeking technology-centric opportunities in India and Southeast Asia. The fund has made 32 investments since 2018, exited two, and 20 have gone on to raise further rounds.
Established by Rajul Garg and Shwetank Verma in 2017, some of Leo Capital’s investments include automation testing platform Lambdatest, diabetes management startup BeatO, logistics firm Vahak, and gaming platform Bombay Play.
Garg founded Pine Labs, GlobalLogic and Sunstone Education. He started angel investing in 2011, before setting up Leo Capital. Rajul is also an early investor in the social commerce platform Meesho. Shwetank Verma has worked for the Clermont Group, where he was involved in investing in education and healthcare before joining Metlife Asia, where he led work on innovation and partnerships with startups. Verma also founded startup MyHealthMate, which was acquired in 2016.
“The biggest joy for me is when I hear people speak about portfolio companies. When I go to a restaurant in Delhi and swipe my card on a Pine Labs PoS (point of sale), or when I talk to a software tester praising Lambdatest, or seeing a material environmental impact by using IPL’s electric trucks,” Garg said in the statement.
“We look for businesses with a vision and a business model that can scale to enduring, impactful large enterprises. We stay true to technology-centric companies, with a firm belief that technology creates exponential impact and value. We can invest very early, at a concept stage, or we can invest a little later depending on the space, traction, ability to scale and other factors. Our spaces of interest include participative commerce, insure-tech, fintech, Web3 and Global SaaS companies,” he added
Leo Capital said it focuses on two investment themes. Firstly, technology-based India domestic consumption startups – consumer internet, commerce, healthtech, logistics, edtech, fintech, insurtech, and other sectors. The second theme is that of global technology companies in India like South-Asia-centric companies or software as a service (SaaS) companies.
Since 2014, over 6,500 Indian startups have raised over $81 billion in funding, and this is growing exponentially year on year. This includes 66 startups that are in the Unicorn Club valued at more than $1 billion, whose combined valuation is $210 billion. This number is set to reach 100 startups by 2023.
