Elevation Capital Launches $400 Mn Fund for IPO-Bound Startups

VC firm Elevation Capital has launched a late stage fund, Elevation Holdings, with a corpus of $400 Mn to back startups looking to go public.

“We are thrilled to launch Elevation Holdings, a unique late-stage vehicle dedicated to supporting technology founders who are seeking to go public in India in the near future,” the VC firm said. 

The firm, which counts the likes of FirstCry, ixigo, Meesho, and Paytm in its portfolio, said Elevation Holdings will aim for long-term partnership with companies that have the potential to perform well in the public markets as well as post listing. 

“We’ve seen how generational companies are built, and we know the journey doesn’t end at IPO – in many ways, that’s just the beginning. With this experience, we believe we are uniquely positioned to support the journey to going public and, more importantly, what comes the day after,” it said. 

The new fund will primarily invest in the consumer and financial services platforms with a focus on technology, Elevation Capital co-managing partner Mukul Arora told ET. 

It will back 10 to 15 startups which are eyeing a public listing in the next 3 years. The ticket size would be $20 Mn to $50 Mn. The new fund has already made investment in used-car marketplace Spinny, as per the report. 

The fund will invest in startups from Elevation Capital’s portfolio as well as external startups. Elevation Holdings would pick up stakes in startups via primary or secondary deals, including buying stock options from employees.

“Our horizons for investments are much longer and we will hold long enough to be considered permanent holders of the stock. We also have the flexibility in terms of having a non-intrusive cheque size for a company of that scale,” said Mridul Arora, partner, Elevation Capital.

The fund launch comes at a time when nearly 40 new-age tech companies are looking to go public over the next year or so. This year, five new-age tech companies have gone public so far – Smartworks, Ather Energy, ArisInfra, IndiQube and BlueStone. Just yesterday, investment tech major Groww received SEBI’s nod for its $800 Mn to $1 Bn IPO.

A number of VC and PE funds and institutional investors are looking to buy shares of these companies ahead of their IPO bid. Notably, Elevation Capital purchased more than 2.03 Lakh shares of IPO-bound portfolio startup Wakefit from the D2C brand’s employees via secondary transactions in 2025 in June. 

Earlier this month, Neo Asset Management marked the first close of its INR 2,000 Cr secondary PE fund at INR 750 Cr to invest in late stage startups. Similarly, IndigoEdge-backed PixelSky Capital announced the first close of its secondary fund at INR 150 Cr to invest in late stage tech and consumer companies expected to go public in the next three to four years.