Veda VC, an early-stage venture capital fund, announced the first close of its Rs 250 crore (about $30 million) fund at Rs 150 crore (about $18 million), with investments from high-net-worth individuals, startup founders and operators and family offices, according to ETtech report.
The Bengaluru-based fund plans to invest between $250,000 and $1.25 million in startups across consumer internet, software-as-a-service, fintech and deeptech. It has backed the likes of Dukaan, Even Health, One Impression, Agnikul, Rigi and GrowthSchool, so far.
The fund, which has made nine funding deployments so far, targets a portfolio distribution of 25% each in SaaS and consumer technology, 30% in deeptech and 20% with the rest, founder and managing partner Avijeet Alagathi told ET. It is expected to do 10-12 investments in a year, he said.
The rest of the Rs 250 crore fund is expected to close by December 2023, Alagathi added.
The firm was founded by former startup founders and operators Alagathi, Vasant Rao, Ashis Nayak and Venus Dhuria. “In 2019, we began as a community of founders aiming to assist other founders at the angel stage. Veda has become one of the most active seed investors, investing approximately $10 million annually across various startups,” managing partner Rao said in a statement.
From 2020 to 2022, Veda ran as a syndicate fund, when it had made 33 investments. “As operators, we understand how tough the founders’ journey is and having seen the ups and downs of building and scaling up a startup, we decided to start Veda to enable seed stage founders with the knowledge and network to make better decisions,” Alagathi said.
“They (Rao and Alagathi) are super responsive whenever you need anything and when we had a do or die moment for our company, they really stepped up in a way that was 10x more than I could have expected,” Even Health CEO Mayank Banerjee said in a statement. The health insurance startup has raised over $20 million in follow-on capital from Khosla Ventures, Lightrock and Falcon Edge.
Separately, portfolio company Dukaan’s founder and CEO Suumit Shah said, “Venus (Dhuria) has been an exceptional partner in our growth journey. His availability for brainstorming sessions and his expertise in growth and strategy have been instrumental in shaping Dukaan into what it is today.”
Dhuria is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of AppyHigh, a mobile application publisher.
Rao, who oversees venture partnerships and fundraising at Veda VC while focusing on investments in frontier technology, enterprise SaaS and the creator ecosystem, is also a serial entrepreneur, who exited two ventures – Inhibitions Gaming and AutoNinja. Nayak was also a cofounder of AutoNinja.
Alagathi, who oversees portfolio management, investor relations and overall operations of Veda VC while also focusing on investments across fintech, healthtech and small and medium business SaaS, has previously founded BYG — Book Your Game — and led new product initiatives at KredX and ABI Health.
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