Arkam Ventures launches second fund with a target corpus of $180 mn
Arkam Ventures, a technology-focused early stage Venture capital firm (VC)On Tuesday, it announced the launch of its second fund, with a target cost of $180 million. Through this fund, the company will make investments in Series A and Series B startups, focusing on emerging sectors such as electric vehicles (EV) and manufacturing technology.
Started in 2020 by venture capitalists Rahul Chandra and Bala Srinivasa, Arkam plans to double its investment in digitization in central India, focusing on financial services, skills, food, agriculture, healthcare, mobility and SaaS.
Its portfolio currently consists of 16 fledgling companies, including fintech companies like Jar and Kreditbee, food/agritech companies like Jai-Kisan and Jumbotail, skills companies like Smartstaff and Cusmat, as well as SaaS companies like Spotdraft and Signzy.
Six of Arkam’s Fund I investments are already leaders in their own categories. “They are redesigning markets with a technology-driven business model and are rapidly expanding to serve hundreds of millions of clients,” said Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures.
“We believe Central India’s digitization and SaaS opportunity will lead to the creation of 100 new giant companies over the next decade. Arkam II will participate in this exciting phase of value creation by leveraging its network of institutional SEOs, experienced investment team and access to highly motivated founders.”
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The company launched its first $106 million fund in 2021, with investors such as British International Investment, SIDBI, Evolvence, Quilvest, US Institutional Investors and large family offices. With Fund II, the company will build a portfolio of 20 tech startups, while global “tier one” institutional investors and family offices will form the LP base of the fund.
“We launched the first fund with a deep conviction about Central India’s digitization and the SaaS opportunity. We have supported LPs, and it was gratifying to see Thes works both on a macro level and with Arkam Investments,” said Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director, Arkam Ventures.
We feel our thesis is a multi-generational opportunity and it’s in its infancy. And as we deepen our Middle East and SaaS playbooks, it gives us an edge in identifying amazing companies, new business models and being the venture capital of choice for top founders targeting this opportunity.”
With Fund II, Arkam expects to deploy more capital and support its strongest founders and companies in follow-up rounds. The fund will also strengthen its portfolio advisory function focusing on organizational design, go-to-market (GTM) strategy, financing and operations.