Arkam Ventures announces final close of its maiden fund at $106M

Early stage venture capital firm Arkam Ventures, floated by co-founder at Helion Ventures, Rahul Chandra, and former partner at Kalaari Capital, Bala Srinivasa, has announced the final close of its maiden fund at $106 million (Rs 790 crore approximately). The fund was oversubscribed from its initial target of Rs 650 crore, said the fund in a statement.

The fund has already invested in 12 companies, including the likes of fintech companies Smallcase, KrazyBee, Jar, Jai Kisan, as well as supply chain companies like Jumbotail, patient relationship management platform BestDoc, and others. 

The fund will invest in a total of 18 to 20 companies, Bala Srinivasa, Partner at Arkam Ventures told YourStory. “We are seeing some pull-back on valuation and we will see some reversion from 2021” he added. 

Arkam Ventures invests in Series A and Series B companies with an average cheque size of Rs 10 crore to Rs 20 crore. The fund had announced its first close in June 2020. 

Limited Partners in the fund include institutional investors including British International Investment Plc, Nippon India Digital Innovation, Evolvence Group, Capria, and SIDBI. Early backers of the fund include Infoedge founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, Paytmfounder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and MakeMyTrip co-founder Rajesh Magow.

“While there are many choices for startup financing, founders value investors with the experience and networks that can help across various phases of growth, and especially during challenging circumstances. At Arkam, we invest significant time with our founders to help lay the foundation for growth in the company’s formative years,” said Rahul Chandra, Partner at Arkam Ventures in the statement.

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Arkam invests in digital-first companies across sectors including financial services, healthcare, food and agriculture, education and logistics, as well as SaaS platforms in horizontal digital infrastructure. Among its 12 portfolio companies, seven have already raised follow-up investments, said the statement.

Early-stage funding has seen an uptick year-on-year. According to YourStory research, nearly $1.9 billion being invested in early stage companies for the first eight months of calendar year 2021 alone, as compared to $1.5 billion for the year 2019. 

Multiple venture capital funds have announced early stage programmes to catch promising startups young. Accel announced its pre-seed programme, Accel Atoms, in August 2021.