Kirloskar Family Office, Madhusudan Kela back Artha Group’s Rs 450 cr micro-VC fund

Mumbai-based Artha Group has announced the launch of Rs 450 crore micro venture capital fund named Artha Select Fund (ASF).

The company calls it a ‘winners-only fund’ which will invest in the growth rounds of category-winning start-ups from its other fund Artha Venture Fund (AVF) and Artha India Ventures portfolio.

According to the company, it has identified a handful of start-ups such as LenDenClub, Agnikul, Everest Fleet, HobSpace, InstaAstro, and KarmaLife as established winners of AVF. The fund will commit up to Rs 20 crores in Series B round and an additional Rs 20 crores in Series C round in start-ups where Artha is already an investor. ASF will back 12-14 startups through this vehicle.

ASF has raised Rs 100 crores for the fund from its current limited partners (LP) including Pune-based Kirloskar Family Office and the family office of Madhusudan Kela, former Chief investment strategist at Reliance Capital. Abhinav Sinha, MD, British International Investment; Narendra Karnavat of CA firm Karnavat and Co.; Jashvant Raval of JCR & Co.; Mumbai-based listed firm SAT Industries; Varun Bansal of Jayashree Polymers; Rajiv Lakhotia of Shree Karni Fabcom; and several other investors have also invested in the fund. Abhinav Sinha will also be joining the investment committee at ASF.

“Over the last decade, the Kirloskar family has built an understanding of assessing private companies, opportunities, and entrepreneurs through venture investing. I met Anirudh 8 years ago in Dublin and stayed in touch with him as he grew the Artha portfolio. We became increasingly comfortable with Anirudh during AVF’s second close and decided to hit go this time,” Chris Kolenaty, Head of Private Investments at the Kirloskar Family Office, said. 

Artha Group had announced the final close of its earlier fund AVF in June 2021 with a corpus of Rs 225 crores. AVF has made 27 investments so far such as Nirmalaya and Daalchini. The company claims the fund has provided portfolio returns to investors with a 3.61x MoIC (Multiple on Invested Capital) and 120 per cent Internal Rate of Return (IRR).

“We are ecstatic with the fantastic response to our winner’s Fund. We see early-growth rounds as an amazing investment opportunity to back founders at a critical inflection point in their venture journey. With ASF, we provide our founders with the added firepower to chase sound business metrics like revenues, positive unit economics, and profitability,” Anirudh A. Damani, Managing Partner, Artha Select Fund, said.

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