Early-stage venture capital firm Kae Capital has closed its Winners Fund II (KWF II) at $50 million (Rs 410 crore). The winners fund or opportunity fund is a pool of capital raised separately to invest in the most successful companies within a venture capital portfolio.
Kae Capital said its second winners fund will provide investors exclusive access to companies from previous funds that are leaders in their respective markets, thus allowing co-investment with growth-stage funds in Series B, C and D rounds. In addition to its own portfolio, the fund gives Kae the opportunity to invest in other market-leading companies. Some of the companies it has already invested in from this fund are HealthKart (health-tech), Wysa (health-tech), Brightchamps (edtech) and Disprz (e-learning). Through KWF II, Kae is targeting to invest in 20 companies.
The oversubscribed fund saw investments from several LPs including Velo Partners, Henry Kravis (Co-founder and Co-executive Chairman, KKR), 360 ONE (formerly IIFL Wealth & Asset Management), Prashant Tandon and Tanmay Saksena (Co-founder and CEO & COO, Tata 1MG), Sameer Maheshwari (Founder, HealthKart), Abhay Soi (Founder, Max Healthcare), Hemendra Kothari (Founder, DSP Group), Yogesh Agrawal (MD, Ajanta Pharma), Sanket and Apurva Parekh (Pidilite), and VM Thapar Family Office.
“Being pioneers of early-stage investing in India, we’ve seen the ecosystem grow and see enough merit in being involved for as long as possible in a company’s lifecycle. We have launched this fund in order to continue backing our best founders, alongside other successful founders in the ecosystem, who are not yet a part of the Kae family,” Sasha Mirchandani, Partner, Kae Capital said.
Kae Capital has been investing in India for more than a decade now. It is a sector-agnostic fund that invests in pre-seed to pre-series A stages. Typical initial cheque sizes range between $1-3 million. Kae is an early-stage investor in Porter (logistics), Zetwerk (manufacturing tech), Nazara (gaming), and Tata 1MG (e-pharmacy). It has invested in 81 start-ups so far, with a portfolio enterprise valuation of $8.76 billion and has made 14 exits.
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