Riverwalk Holdings Sets Up INR 150 Cr Fund For Early And Growth Stage Startups

Venture capital company Riverwalk Holdings has launched an INR 150 Cr fund that was backed by Thakral Group and several India and Singapore-based family offices.

As per the press statement, the fund will be writing off cheques up to INR 10 Cr. It is also looking to deploy the entire capital within 18 months. 

Further, the fund intends investing in startups working in SaaS, fintech, consumer tech and consumer brands. To date, the fund has backed four startups – automation startup Spotdraft, ayurveda platform The Ayurveda Experience, community platform for parents Mylo and house financing platform Homeville. 

Founded in 2021 by Jai Sumer Singh and Satveer Thakral Singh, Singapore-based Riverwalk primarily invests in early-stage and growth-stage startups. It has exited companies including Karza Technologies, Dropsuite, LogiNext, Wigzo, nCinga and LBB, as per the statement.

“Riverwalk will leverage its stakeholder network to accelerate the growth of startups by providing access to leading enterprises across Asia,” Jai Sumer Singh, founder of Riverwalk. 

Before founding Riverwalk, the founders had invested in other startups as well. The duo has individually invested in various companies including Wellness Forever, Silent Eight, Anchanto and Mobilewalla, among others. 

In the past few months, a slew of India-focussed VC funds have been introduced. Some examples include Venture Catalysts’ Growth fund, LenDenClub’s LenDenClub Alpha,  Inflection Point Ventures’ AIF CAT II Physis Capital, Omnivore’s third fund and Accel’s Accel India VII.

As per an Inc42 report, venture capitalists infused over $11.8 Bn in 506 startups’ funding deals in the first four months of (Q1), 2022. Some of the prominent backers in these deals were Sequoia Capital, Accel, ah! Ventures, Alteria Capital and Better Capital. 

Sequoia-backed startups include D2C startup Skillmatics, agritech startup Absolute, B2B2C startup Rigi.Club, fintech startup Hubble, software reliability startup Last9 and Web3 community platform Metasky among others. 

Likewise, Accel has backed B2B startup Bytebeam, deeptech startup Spyne, fintech startup Finbots.AI, SaaS startup OSlash, neobank startup Neyo, software startup Testsigma, dairytech startup Moofarm and agritech startup AgroStar, among others. 

While quite a few funds have been launched for startups in the recent past, the country’s startup ecosystem is facing a market correction presently. On the bourses, new-age startups such as Paytm, Nykaa, Zomato and Policybazaar have lost their sheen and consequently, their shares are plummeting for months.

Seeing this, many Indian startups have either postponed their IPO plans or slashed their IPO valuations. Recently, OYO slashed its IPO size by 50% while PharmaEasy trimmed its IPO size considering the market conditions.  

Meanwhile, tensions are growing between the US and Russia owing to the Russia-Ukraine war thereby, affecting the US stock market and begetting a market correction in the US bourses. The war is, in turn, going to lead to increased market volatility and interest rates.