Venture Capital Firm Lightbox Raises 89% Of Its $200 Mn Third Fund

Mumbai-based venture capital (VC) firm Lightbox Ventures has raised $178 Mn for its $200 Mn third fund and expects to announce the final close of the fund by the end of the year.

Sandeep Murthy, founding partner, Lightbox, told Inc42 that the firm has expanded the fund size as it wants to continue with its strategy of doing fewer deals unlike most VCs and invest in businesses throughout their lifecycle. The company will invest $2-8 Mn initially and then make follow-on investments depending on the capital requirements of the company.

Murthy shared that the company will continue to bet on consumer technology and make few but quality investments. Lightbox wants to invest in companies where technology can help create better brands, help in customer acquisition etc. It will continue to explore opportunities in brands and fast-moving consumer goods, financial services, education, and healthcare.

Lightbox plans to complete one to two deals from the new fund by the end of the year.

Lightbox: Identifying Uniqueness Of Indian Startups

Lightbox, which was founded in 2014, today has a fund corpus of $232 Mn and has invested in startups such as online food delivery startup Faasos, automobile marketplace Droom, online travel aggregator Cleartrip, furniture rental startup Furlenco, mobile adtech startup InMobi, and GPS navigation company MapMyIndia, among others.

The fund saw a successful, huge exit from edtech startup Embibe when Reliance Industries invested $180 Mn in the company, buying out 72.69% stake of investors, including Lightbox.

Recently, Inc42 hosted Siddharth Talwar, who founded Lightbox Ventures in 2014 along with Sandeep Murthy, on Ask Me Anything (AMA). Talwar said during the AMA: “At Lightbox, we have time to sit with founders, speak to them, listen to them, and to help them with our own experience and exposure. So, I think both of these things coming together is truly the impact we are able to provide.”

Talwar also highlighted that he looks for companies that are thinking about solving problems that could fundamentally become a big deal in India.

Plans For Lightbox Ventures III

“One thing that played out really well was our willingness to go long in the companies we invested in. We will continue to focus on quality over quantity and spend time finding the right companies,” said Murthy.

Further, with its third fund  — Lightbox Ventures III — the firm wants to avoid raising an expansion fund, which it did in 2016 to support companies from its second fund. The larger fund will ensure that it already has ample capital to back its portfolio firms, said Murthy.

Reportedly, Murthy also said that the limited partners (LPs) or investors in Lightbox’s new fund include institutions, endowments, sovereign funds, foundations, and family offices.

About 80% of the LPs were from the US and the remaining from Asia, he added.

He also said that most of the LPs in the third fund had invested in the previous funds as well.

Recently, Sequoia India announced the close of its sixth fund at a funding corpus of $695 Mn.

Apart from Sequoia, other venture capital firms operating in India include the homegrown Nexus Venture Partners, Accel Partners, Blume Ventures, Matrix Partners, Kalaari Capital, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, among others.

[The development was first reported by Entrackr.]