Synapses launches $125M VC fund focusing on STEM solutions for climate, healthtech
VC fund Synapses plans to conclude its initial investment round in September or October by investing in five to six startups in seed to Series B rounds.
Venture capital (VC) fund Synapses launched its $125 million VC fund on Tuesday at IIT Delhi’s Research and Innovation Park.
Founded by IIT alumni and veteran investors, Ruchira Shukla and Karthik Chandrasekar, Synapses focuses on STEM-based solutions for climatetech and healthtech sectors. The fund will support startups that build STEM solutions with global value propositions, fostering global collaboration, and technology transfers.
According to a press statement, Synapses engages with portfolio companies to accelerate their global growth and impact, using deep technology and collaboration to build global market leaders and deliver 5-7X returns at the fund level.
It plans to conclude its initial investment round in September or October by investing in five to six startups in seed to Series B rounds.
"The climatetech and HealthTech solutions needed today sit at the intersection of STEM-innovation and agile as well as resilient, future-ready, infrastructure-like solutions that need to be deployed at utility scale. Commercialising innovations at this intersection is hard and requires deep sector immersion. We are taking on this challenge because solving for this complexity is what drives alpha and impact,” said Karthik Chandrasekar, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Synapses.
Synapses also supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and promotes International Finance Corporation's (IFC) E&S, governance, diversity, inclusion, and fiscal discipline principles in its portfolio.
“Climate change and an increasing disease burden are the defining challenges of our generation. Synapses is built on the belief that science and technology hold the key to solving these challenges at scale not just for India but for the world. We are nurturing a new generation of audacious, path-breaking innovators and helping them build leading global technology businesses to deliver outsized financial returns,” Ruchira Shukla, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Synapses, said.
In addition to its venture fund, Synapses runs an incubator in partnership with NITI Aayog and a multi-year seed investment programme.
Edited by Suman Singh