Sauce.vc closes third fund with corpus of Rs 365 Cr

Consumer brands focused venture capital (VC) firm Sauce.vc on Monday said it has closed its pre-seed Fund III with a corpus of Rs 365 crore. 

Sauce.vc which has invested in brands such as luggage brand Mokobara, and D2C food company The Whole Truth Foods. The VC firm said it received incoming demand for over Rs 700 crore within four weeks of launch in May this year but was later scaled down to Rs 365 crore as the final fund round. 

“This fund was oversubscribed 3X in four weeks and it was overwhelming and tempting to raise more but right-sizing was important," Manu Chandra Founder and Managing Partner at Sauce.vc shared in a LinkedIn post. 

Nearly 95% of the LPs in the third fund were domestic and involved top consumer-focused family offices, corporates and HNIs. The fund witnessed participation from the Chona family, Kris Goplakrishnan’s Investment Office, Pratithi Investment, Mirabilis Investment Trust, Sarda Group, Singularity Ventures and Saison Capital among others. 

"We were overwhelmed by the response from new and old investors for our new Fund. We were unable to accommodate a lot of new investors as we had to prioritize existing LPs. We did however open up some new strategic LP partnerships that we are extremely happy about. While it is tempting, but we decided not to accept more capital than we can deploy in a disciplined way, while staying true to our stated strategy.” Chandra said in a statement. 

Also Read

Consumer businesses to contribute $25B in next 5 yrs: Aditya Birla Group Chairman

Sauce.vc’s Fund III will issue the first cheques of Rs 5 crore to 12-15 companies. It has already completed three new investments in veterinary clinics, baby gear, and ayurvedic children's wellness space. The fund will continue Sauce’s concentrated strategy with 75% of the funds earmarked for follow-ons into select winners. 

"We have a very strong pipeline and as we have done in the past, we will back a mix of established promoters like at Hocco Ice Creams and Foodkraft along with newer age founders like those of Kreo and Perfora," said Yash Dholakia, Partner, Sauce.vc in a press note.

The company claims it has returned cost on Fund I with a holding period of just two years for LPs.