Multi-stage venture fund Weave Capital has announced a $75 million (around Rs 585 crore) sector agnostic fund to back technology startups, the firm said on Tuesday. The fund will have a greenshoe option of $25 million.
The fund is the venture arm of global investment and holding company SPVH group.
Weave Capital is aiming to announce the first close at $20 million with the participating and leading investments in startups between the Seed to Series B stages.
The VC firm will write cheques for between $1-5 million across different stages of the portfolio company. It is aiming to build a portfolio of 15-20 startups with an average ticket size of $3- 3.5 million.
Weave Capital will soon start deploying capital post the first close. The fund has filed category II AIF registration and is currently expecting approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).
Karan Gupta, managing partner at Weave Capital said, “our team at Weave has led diverse and cross-sector transactions and growth advisory engagements both in India and overseas.”
Gupta adds that the team at Weave has expertise across areas such as corporate finance, strategy, entrepreneurship, operations and fund management. He had previously worked at Lodha Ventures and BDO India.
Prior to joining Weave, Gupta worked in firms like Lodha Ventures, Avighnaa Advisory Services and Sindhi Advisors, while partner Sujay Prakash is the founder of Econote, a digital notebook maker, as per their respective Linkedin profiles.
“We need to come out of this standard theme of ‘IRR’ and ‘exit’ and start questioning the ‘why and beyond’. As for Weave Capital, we are certainly different from the standard VCs. Our ability to leverage our cross-functional business, strategic relationships and in-house experts shall play an important role in the success of our portfolio. We are willing to take up opportunities which solve real problems and are demonstrating its need in the start-up ecosystem,” Prakash said.
The startup ecosystem has seen several funds launch in recent times.
Last month, Mumbai-based portfolio management service, Piper Serica Advisors Pvt. Ltd launched a Rs 100 crore category-I angel fund to invest in early-stage tech companies. To minimize the risk of high mortality in its portfolio, The PMS provider aims to back 30-40 investments over the next 3 years with this fund.
In the same month, Bertelsmann India Investments announced an India-focused fund of $500 million. Bertelsmann is looking to deploy capital across 6-8 companies every year, for now.
This month, Investment platform LetsVenture’s co-founder Shanti Mohan launched a Rs 50 crore micro venture fund to invest in early-stage startups. The fund, Propell, is aiming to deploy Rs 50 crore in a total of 30 startups across sectors like e-commerce, fintech, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and direct-to-consumer (D2C).
