Early-stage investor Ankur Capital, which focuses on businesses that use technology, is preparing to launch its third fund with a target size in the range of $125-150 million to invest in up to 25 startups, a spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday.
Ankur Capital’s existing investors, which include CDC Group, Dutch Good Growth Fund, BIRAC, MacArthur Foundation, and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), as well as new entities will invest in the latest fund, where the investment amount per startup could go up to as much as $8-10 million.
Its first and second funds were of $8 million and $52 million in size, respectively.
Ankur Capital’s fundraising comes at a time when global funds including Sequoia, Accel, LightSpeed and Matrix Partners have either raised or are in talks to raise capital.
Last month, early-stage venture capital firm Fundamental VC, founded by startup executives, launched its debut fund of $130 million, while Mumbai-based portfolio management service Piper Serica Advisors launched a Rs 100-crore fund to invest in 30-40 early-stage tech companies in three years. Bertelsmann India Investments (BII), the venture capital arm of the German media firm Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, also raised $500 million to invest in India over the next few years.
Set up in 2014, Ankur Capital joins a list of VC funds such as Sequoia, Chiratae, Accel, Tiger Global, and Sequoia’s Surge that are now coming in early to back startups.
The VC firm’s focus has primarily been on agritech, healthtech, edtech, and fintech. Some of its last year’s investments were Wasabi, edtech platform MyCaptain, business-to-business (B2B) buy now pay later platform Rupifi and Captain Fresh, Vegrow, among others. It exited from three companies in 2021.
It has so far invested in about 24 startups from Fund I and II, in the range of $500,000-$5 million. The first close, to the tune of $60 million, of the new fund is expected by the end of this year or early next year.