Gemba Capital marks initial close of its maiden micro-VC fund at Rs 75 Cr

Gemba Capital, which actively invests in seed and pre-seed rounds in India, has made an initial close of Rs 75 crore for its maiden fund. The micro-venture capital firm had launched its $10 million (Rs 77.48 crore) micro-VC fund in September last year. 

Its founding partner Adith Podhar said in a statement,

“We are overwhelmed by the confidence shown in our abilities by our LPs. We have reached the target of Rs 75 crore and will announce the final close soon. We want to close all the ongoing discussions and we should get oversubscribed and touch Rs 100 crore.”

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Founded in 2018, Gemba Capital plans to broadly invest 50 percent of the fund in fintech and SaaS (software-as-a-service) companies. The remaining will be opportunistically deployed across sectors such as Web 3.0, gaming, deeptech, healthcare, and B2B commerce.

“Our LPs are a mix of CXOs, founders and family offices. We have been able to attract great quality LPs and we are extremely happy with the LP mix. Now the focus has shifted completely on deployment and investing in great startups at pre-seed and seed stage,” added Adith.

“Our deal pipeline is strong, and we intend to make our first investment from May this year onwards. Our target remains to close eight deals by December end,” he further said. 

Gemba Capital’s ticket size will be from $100,000 - $250,000 as the first cheque. It has kept around 35 percent of the fund size as reserve allocation for participating in follow-on rounds in winners from the portfolio. 

Some of Gemba Capital’s pre-fund portfolio companies include Plum and Verak (insurtech); Wint, Strata and Grip (alternative investment); Inai, ClickPost, Zuper, Tranzact, Threado (SaaS); as well as Smartstaff, Unnati, and Krishikan (marketplace/aggregators).

Gemba Capital says its focus has been to participate in the journey of high-quality, high-growth companies led by mission-driven founders as early as possible. As it scales, the VC firm looks to add venture partners and team members in its investment team.

Another new initiative which is in plans and will be launched soon is the Scout Programme – which will enable highly networked individuals in the startup ecosystem to partner with Gemba Capital.