Mantra Eyes Agri, Foodtech Startups With $60 Mn Fund

US-Based cross border fund Mantra Capital, on January 8, launched its $60 Mn fund that will focus on early-stage foodtech, healthtech, agritech and startups working on the circular economy in India and the US. The venture fund has already raised $24 Mn for the fund and aims to close the fund by the end of 2020.

Jay Krishnan, one of the founding members of Mantra Capital, said “Mantra Capital’s fund will focus on scaling innovative solutions that have rapid acceleration potential and can solve problems locally with a massive global impact. We are uniquely positioned to execute this game plan and maximise returns to our investors.”

Mantra Capital will be focusing on seed and pre-series A round startups that are working on advanced solutions for human good in three specific themes — what we eat, where we live and what we thrive. The company, in its press release, also noted that it would be interested to fund startups that are backed by deeptech technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), blockchain, photonics and robotics.

The Internal Working Of Mantra Capital Fund

The fund is managed by three veteran entrepreneurs — Jay Krishnan, Srikanth Chintalapati and Kevin Jacobs. Jay Krishnan and Srikanth Chintalapati will be managing the Indian business and venture capital segment.

Jay Krishnan will be heading the deal flow in India, and will also be responsible for product management and business development for the portfolio startups. Moreover, he would also be in charge of bringing in global partnerships for portfolio companies.

Chintalapati will be responsible for supporting Indian portfolio startups in product development as well as scaling their operations and distribution in India. Meanwhile, Kevin Jacobs will be handling the US market by facilitating deal flow, assessing target startups, as well as managing exits or mergers and acquisitions (M&A) of the portfolio companies.

Besides funding, the Mantra Capital Fund will also focus on developing strategic partnerships with investors, global network, industry experience and market expertise of its portfolio companies. The early-stage fund will also provide offshore venture services and managed services to global startups.

In addition, Mantra Capital will partner with global corporations and accelerators to help startups’ Go-To-Market (GTM) and provide help in design, marketing, manufacturing, channel creation, and M&A through Mantra Capital’s managed services partner platform.

In its press statement, Mantra Capital also announced that it will be scouting and curating US and Indian startups for its corporate innovation scaling programmes, which will be launched in the second quarter of 2020.

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