Bengaluru-based Arkam Ventures, formerly known as Unitary Helion, recently announced the first close of ₹325Cr of its maiden ₹700Cr startup fund. The company says it will focus on early-to-growth-stage startups in Series A, Series B stages across financial services, healthcare, food, agriculture, and mobility space.
The new fund is backed by investors like Small Industries Development Bank of India, American investment firm Capria and entrepreneurs including Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma. The company plans to close the rest of the fund, about ₹375 crore, by the end of this financial year.
Former CEO of Microsoft India Ravi Venkatesan, Reliance Jio president Vikas Choudhry, Five9 executive VP Anand Chandrasekharan, Southeast Asian microbiome bank AMiLI’s cofounder Jeremy Lim, insurtech company Xceedance’s CEO Arun Balakrishnan, and BigBasket head HR Hari TN are acting as the advisor of the maiden fund.
The company is reportedly looking to invest an average of ₹10-15Cr in startups for their Series A, and ₹20-25Cr in Series B rounds. The VC firm expects to target around 15-18 companies with this fund.
Originally started as Unitary Helion in 2017, the VC firm was established by Rahul Chandra, a former managing director at Helion Venture Partners, and Bala Srinivasa, a former partner at Kalaari Partners. It has changed its name to Arkam Ventures to avoid any confusion with the now defunct Helion Venture Partners.
The fund has already invested in lending startup Krazybee and business-to-business grocery platform Jumbotail and said it is in the process of backing three more startups, which operate in financial services and agriculture technology. The fund’s investment thesis is around finding startups that cater to the middle-class India comprising about 400mn people whose annual family incomes range between ₹3-20 lakhs.
Talking about the investment plans, company co-founder Bala Srinivasa said,“(This) market is very large, but has huge inefficiencies in the form of broken supply chains, limited access to credit, and outdated brick and mortar infrastructure, all which was magnified during the covid crisis. Founders who combine a deep understanding of middle India, and leverage technology to design low cost solutions and efficient new business models can build highly differentiated and scalable businesses.”
The new fund raised by the company comes at a time when the Indian startup ecosystem has been facing severe impact of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. Thousands of jobs have been lost and more cuts are expected over the coming months at startups, along with down rounds and distressed sales. Several investors have now taken a back-seat and are waiting for the crisis to get over in order to understand the economy.
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