New Delhi, April 27 -- Bengaluru-based Capital A, a venture capital firm led by Ankit Kedia, who was previously the promoter and director at plastic packaging solutions Manjushree Technopack Ltd, has marked the first close of second fund that it launched in 2024.
The VC, which makes early-stage investments, was targeting to raise a corpus of Rs 400 crore (around $42.5 million) for the vehicle. This included a greenshoe option of Rs 100 crore.
The firm has received 50% of the commitments, Kedia told VCCircle in two separate interactions. The vehicle has been largely backed by domestic investors, including family offices, high net worth individuals and corporate leaders.
Investors in the fund include Chamaria Group, Steel House Family Office, Avyay Jhunjhunwala, MP Family Office (Dubai), Siddharth Bafna of Lodha & Co., Srikar Reddy, Sekhar Boddu, the family office of Sri Vijayalakshmi Agarbathi Works, Manjushree Ventures Family Office and Deven Bhandari of BU Bhandari Group. Institutional participation includes Anand Rathi Group.
The new vehicle marked the firm's first foray into raising capital from external limited partners (LPs) in India and abroad. Its predecessor and the debut vehicle launched in 2021 with a Rs 250 crore corpus, did not include any outside LPs.
Kedia said the fund is in discussion with institutional LPs and is hoping for a final close in the next quarter.
The latest fund is focusing on four themes: manufacturing, climate-tech, deeptech and fintech.
It has invested in seven companies including spacetech startup Manastu Space, aerospace deeptech firm Misochain Technologies, deep tech engineering company Quintrans and methane-to-hydrogen platform Enerzi among others, with three more deals in advanced stages.
It is aiming to build a portfolio of about 15-20 seed to early-stage startups through the fund. The second fund is has a cheque size of $750,000 to $1 million (around Rs 7-9.4 crore), compared to $100,000-500,000 cheque size of the first fund.
From the first fund, Capital A invested in 20 startups, including Chargeup, Oorja Energy, Cell Propulsion, Entuple, Jiraaf, Credit Fair, LeRemitt, Bharatsure, Bambrew Infinity Box, Matchlog, and Tan90.
"We are seeing a clear shift in how both founders and investors are approaching manufacturing and deep tech in India. These are businesses that require patience, strong execution and deep operating involvement. Having spent years building and scaling manufacturing businesses at Manjushree Technopack, our focus at Capital-A has been on partnering early with founders solving real industrial problems and working alongside them to build enduring companies," said Kedia, founder and lead investor at Capital-A.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.