Elev8 Venture Partners, a venture capital firm backed by Venture Catalysts, on Friday said it has raised $67 million in the first close of its maiden fund to invest in startups in their Series B and C rounds of financing.
Bangalore-based Elev8, which is targeting a corpus of $200 million for the fund, aims to invest in sectors including consumer tech, enterprise software, fintech, and healthtech.
Elev8, which commenced operations earlier this year, is anchored by KB Investment, South Korea’s largest Financial conglomerate; and Venture Catalysts.
“Given the overwhelming response we have received from our LPs, we were able to announce the first close in three months, much earlier than expected. The way forward is to be aggressive in the current environment and invest in one company a quarter or more,” Navin Honagudi, Managing Partner, Elev8 Venture Partners, said.
The launch of the fund comes even as fundraising by Indian startups continues to face trying times as the funding tap continues to run dry. Dealmaking in the country plunged to $3.22 billion in April-June (Q2) 2023, down almost 57% from $7.55 billion in Q2 last year, according to data from DealStreetAsia DATA VANTAGE‘s latest report India Deal Review: Q2 2023.
Growth-stage funding — or investments at the Series B stage and later— totalled $1.13 billion across 25 deals in Q2, accounting for about 35% of the deal value. Growth-stage deals accumulated $1.46 billion across 28 deals in the previous quarter.
In a market environment where fundraising has been extremely challenging, Elev8 through its strong value proposition and stellar GP track record has been able to attract some of the leading family offices and prominent HNIs from across India, the Middle-East and Asia, the firm said.
Elev8 said it has already taken steps towards its investment strategy and has signed a term sheet with a company in the enterprise SaaS space.