Sep 9, 2020

by DealStreetAsia source: DealStreetAsia Bengaluru-based StartupXseed Ventures has launched its second fund of ₹200 crore, that will focus on early-stage investment in start-ups focused on deep technologies. The sector agnostic seed and early stage venture capital fund was founded five years back by B. V. Naidu, former director, Software Technology Parks of India, Mohan Das Pai, co-founder of Aarin Capital, Ravi Thakur and other entrepreneurs. Out of ₹200 crore, ₹65 crore has been raised from individual technocrats and the balance amount will be raised over the next 6-9 months. Fund II will invest ₹3-10 crore per round in emerging deep tech start-ups from SaaS to Spacetech including cybersecurity, silicon IP, healthtech, fintech and agritech and AI/ML. Fund I investments saw three exits and include companies like Bellatrix, CloudSEK, DarwinBox, ShieldSquare, Siliconch Systems, Singularity Dynamics, SmarterBiz and Steradian Semiconductors. “The portfolio continuous to be healthy and these companies are on a growth path despite the current pandemic situation. Fund 1 returned 35% of principal much before it had completed final draw down and investment cycle,” said Naidu. Naidu feels that deep tech and B2B has been less impacted by covid and given their past performance they will continue to focus on deep tech, adding a few more verticals. “We were looking at seed stage funding in fund 1, and in fund 2 will look at seed to early growth stage so we will pick up little bit more equity… the horizon is looking good for investment with much advanced technologies being developed locally,” said Ravi Thakur, co-founding partner, StartupXseed. Beyond funding, StartupXseed helps the start-ups in their journey of building a sustainable business, by providing strategic support through Market Access, Mentorship, Corporate Governance, and connects them with investors.