Gemba Capital Floats INR 250 Cr Second Fund

SUMMARY

From the second fund, the SEBI-registered AIF manager is looking to back 30 early stage 'platform-first' businesses

The fund will invest in companies with an average ticket size of INR 5 Cr and will reserve 30% of the corpus for making follow-on investments

Founded in 2018 by Podhar, Gemba Capital is a micro VC firm based out of Bengaluru which claims to have backed over 120 founders across over 50 startups to date

Micro venture capital firm Gemba Capital, which counts Plum, Grip Invest, Wint Wealth, Strata, Navadhan and LightFury among its portfolio companies, has floated its second fund with a target corpus of INR 250 Cr, including a green shoe option of INR 50 Cr.

From the second fund, the SEBI-registered AIF manager is looking to back 30 early stage ‘platform-first’ businesses across three focus sectors – fintech, consumer tech and B2B platforms.

Digital ‘platform-first’ businesses are those which can create compounding moats through ecosystem creation, network effects or the ability to stack value-add layers.

The fund will invest in companies with an average ticket size of INR 5 Cr and will reserve 30% of the corpus for making follow-on investments, the VC firm said in a statement.

It is targeting to make the final close of the fund by the end of the year.

“Our journey has evolved from investing proprietary capital to running an angel syndicate and then raising and investing from our INR 70 Cr Fund-I. We are now looking to partner with institutional LPs for our INR 250 Cr Fund-II,” said Gemba Capital’s general partner Adith Podhar.

Founded in 2018 by Podhar, Gemba Capital is a micro VC firm based out of Bengaluru which claims to have backed over 120 founders across over 50 startups to date.

It is pertinent to note that Gemba Capital’s first fund was introduced in 2022 and it had a corpus of INR 70 Cr raised via investments from family offices, founders, and CXOs. With its first fund, it offered an average cheque size of INR 2 Cr to the startups.

The development comes at the heart of homegrown VC and PE firms accumulating notable dry powders to drive the Indian startup ecosystem.

Earlier this month, Next Bharat Ventures launched an INR 340 Cr fund and a residency programme to catalyse the growth of the social impact startup ecosystem in India.

Last month, VentureSoul Partners rolled out its maiden debt fund, VentureSoul Capital Fund I, with a target corpus of INR 600 Cr.

The development comes around the backdrop of Indian startups encountering the brunt of the ongoing funding winter.

Not to mention, Indian startups cumulatively raised investments worth $5.3 Bn in the first six months of 2024, which was a 1.8% decline year-on-year. However, the fintech and enterprise tech sectors bagged the most funds during this period.

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