Ex-BharatPe CBO Pratekk Agarwaal’s GrowthCap Ventures To Close Maiden INR 50 Cr Fund In 2 Months

GrowthCap Ventures, an early stage venture capital (VC) fund launched by former BharatPe chief business officer Pratekk Agarwaal, is looking to close its maiden fund at INR 50 Cr in the next couple of months.

“We have already raised 50% of the fund corpus and will close this in the next two months. We are looking to write 10-12 cheques this year in early stage startups (seed to pre-Series A),” Agarwaal told Inc42.

The fund will allocate 60% of its corpus for fintech investments, 30% for investing in SaaS startups, and 10% for deeptech startups.

Launched in August last year, the SEBI-registered Category-II single general partner-led alternative investment fund (AIF) marked its first close at INR 20 Cr in February this year.

The fund has already invested in Advance Mobility, a sustainable mobility startup, which mainly provides fleet services to ride-hailing giant Uber. 

Agarwaal said that it is an invite-only fund so that there is greater scrutiny on who will be the limited partners. GrowthCap Ventures boasts of limited partners like Beerud Sheth of Gupshup, Shankar Vailaya of Sharekhan, Naresh Naik of Irep Credit Capital, former chief digital officer of Kotak Mahindra Bank Deepak Sharma, Ankur Jain of InCred, Sanjit Nagarkatti and Gaurav Bhojak of IIFL.

Agarwaal said he is also aiming to launch a growth stage VC fund, ‘Winners Fund’, with a corpus of INR 250 Cr next year. The fund will aim to invest $2 Mn-$3 Mn in growth stage startups in fintech, SaaS, and deeptech sectors.

GrowthCap Ventures is an operator-driven fund. Besides providing equity and debt capital, it aims to provide mentorship, networking opportunities, and industry expertise to founders of portfolio startups.

In simple terms, operator-driven VC funds are those funds, which are led by those who have experience in the startup or the tech ecosystem in an operational role. Over the last few years, a number of operator-driven VC funds have been launched in the Indian startup ecosystem.

The Rise Of Operator VC Funds

The former BharatPe executive, who has also made investments and mentored startups, including Decentro, Vegapay, Klub, Karmalife, Fundly, Transbnk and Coverself, highlighted the emerging trend of top industry executives launching their own VC funds. 

According to Agarwaal, what is fuelling this trend of operator-led VC funds is that several executives, like him, want to associate with more than one startup. Such VC funds provide them the opportunity to not only invest but also mentor innovative startups.

He added that the Indian startup ecosystem has capital in abundance right now. However, founders are more tilted towards operator-driven funds as they want to be mentored by the ones who have already been there and done that. Therefore, founders are today seeking mentorship to scale products, identify product-market fit, and strategise executions.

Notably, former Freshworks CEO and founder Girish Mathrubootham launched the $85 Mn Together Fund in 2021 to invest in edtech and fintech firms.

Despite the perceived funding winter observed in the startup ecosystem since 2023, several new funds led by former CXOs have emerged. For instance, in April this year, former JSW Sports CEO, Mustafa Ghouse, launched an INR 350 Cr sports tech and gaming fund, Centre Court Capital.

Additionally, former Reliance Industries Limited executives, Rajiv Vaishnav and Abhishek Prasad, introduced a B2B enterprise tech-focussed fund with a corpus of $200 Mn last month.

More recently, former BharatPe CEO Suhail Sameer and former COO Dhruv Bahl launched their early stage VC funds to invest in seed stage and Series A funds.