Kae Capital to raise new $100M fund to back seed-stage startups
The firm is the latest among a string of Indian VCs that are stocking up on dry powder to help fund early-stage startups in the country.
Early-stage venture capital firm Kae Capital is raising its fourth fund with a target corpus of $100 million, a source familiar with the matter told YourStory.
Moneycontrol was the first to report on this matter.
The firm will allot a majority of the new fund to back seed-stage startups, with a portion of it reserved for follow-ons. While the firm will continue to focus on sectors including business-to-business (B2B), fintech and consumer, the new fund will also look to back startups working in automation, physical AI, deeptech and manufacturing, the source told YourStory.
Kae Capital did not comment on the matter.
The firm, which has backed companies like skincare brand Foxtale and lending company Snapmint, is the latest in a long list of VC firms that have loaded up on dry powder to invest in startups. They include Accel and A91 Partners.
In November, the firm said that two of its earlier bets, logistics platform Porter and online healthcare marketplace HealthKart, have together returned the firm’s maiden fund multiple times following a series of recent secondary transactions.
The firm’s maiden fund, which was launched in 2012, has backed 32 companies across India and the United States. The Fund I India vehicle has fully exited with a distributed paid-in capital of 3.6X as of September 2023, while the overseas vehicle is on track to deliver to over 5X DPI (distributions to paid-in capital).
DPI measures how much money investors have received compared to what they originally put in. In this case, a DPI of 3.6x means investors have received 3.6 times their original investment.
Gaurav Chaturvedi, General Partner at Kae Capital, told YourStory in November that the firm was looking to make one or two more investments from Fund III. Chaturvedi had also hinted at the company’s focus on bets in AI, intelligent automation, manufacturing and deeptech—sectors that are currently experiencing favourable regulatory tailwinds.
Edited by Swetha Kannan