Artha Group announces Rs 450Cr winners-only microVC fund

Mumbai-based Artha Group today announced the launch of its Rs 450 crore winners-only microVC fund – Artha Select Fund (’ASF’).

According to the firm, The fund is backed by Pune-based Kirloskar Family Office, the family office of former Reliance Capital CIS Madhusudan Kela, Abhinav Sinha (MD – British International Investment), Narendra Karnavat of CA firm Karnavat and Co., Jashvant Raval of JCR & Co, Mumbai-based listed firm SAT Industries, Varun Bansal of Jayashree Polymers, Rajiv Lakhotia of Shree Karni Fabcom, and several other investors.

With this fund, Artha will back category-winning startups from its portfolio in their follow-on rounds. The fund will commit up to Rs 20 crore in the Series B round and an additional Rs 20 crore in the Series C round in startups where Artha is already an investor.

Artha Select Fund will back 12-14 startups through this vehicle, the firm said.

The firm further said it raised its first Rs 100 crore in less than 3 weeks, as current LPs enthusiastically chose to double down on the winners of Artha Venture Fund (‘AVF’) – India’s first early-stage microVC Fund.

The established winners of AVF include LenDenClub, Agnikul, Everest Fleet, HobSpace, InstaAstro, KarmaLife, etc.

In June 2021, Artha announced the final close of AVF at over Rs 225 crore, exceeding its target corpus of Rs 200 crore. So far, The Fund has made 27 investments with a combined valuation of Rs 3,600+ crore.

AVF claims that it has provided spectacular portfolio returns to investors with a 3.61x MoIC (Multiple on Invested Capital) and 120%+ IRR as the earliest investor in these startups.

AVF’s portfolio startup Daalchini raised its Series A round led by Unicorn India Ventures. AVF had led Daalchini’s seed and Pre-Series A rounds. Besides, AVF recently announced its investment into circular-economy startup Nirmalaya.

Bhavin Patel, CEO & Founder of LenDenClub, said, “Artha has been a true partner for LenDenClub, investing in us when we were disbursing just 8-10 loans per month. In those early days, with their support and understanding of working with other startups, Dipesh and I could establish solid KPIs for the business and ensure that our business decisions were based on data.”

In December 2021, LenDenClub raised $10 million in a Series A round from Ohm Enterprises (Amal Parikh’s family office), Tuscan Ventures, Som Ventures LLP, QED Innovation Labs, Angel List, ace Indian cricket Hardik Pandya, and Shajikumar Devakar (IIFL Wealth).

"Over the last decade, the Kirloskar family has built an understanding of assessing private companies, opportunities, and entrepreneurs through venture investing. I met Anirudh 8 years ago in Dublin and stayed in touch with him as he grew the Artha portfolio. We became increasingly comfortable with Anirudh during AVF’s second close and decided to hit go this time," said Chris Kolenaty, Head of Private Investments at the Kirloskar Family Office.

"We see early-growth rounds as an amazing investment opportunity to back founders at a critical inflection point in their venture journey. With ASF, we provide our founders with the added firepower to chase sound business metrics like revenues, positive unit economics, and profitability!," said Anirudh A. Damani – Managing Partner, Artha Select Fund.

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