Early-stage Investor Kae Capital to Raise $60 Mn to launch Third fund The amount is much greater than the second fund, which was raised at a valuation of $53 million

Early-stage investor Kae Capital is raising US$60 million for its third venture capital fund, according to a report published by Indian newspaper LiveMint. The report cites two people aware of the matter.

The newly-raised amount is much greater than the second fund which was raised at a valuation of $53 million and was backed by Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) adding abbreviation, MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra and Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and among a few others.

Kae Capital was founded by Sasha Mirchandani who also co-founded Mumbai-based Mumbai Angels Network. Mirchandani made several investments in his personal capacity before setting up the early-stage fund.

The VC fund has made 70 early-stage investments and has funded companies like Truebil, Healthkart, 1mg, Hiver etc. It has invested across various sectors including technology, consumer internet, mobile, payments, education, healthcare etc.

The Big Gap in Early Stage Funding

India has a robust ecosystem of early-stage VCs but the numbers are less than India's start-up counterparts who have seen a surge in start-ups like US or China. Despite being a land of opportunities, a testimony of which is the increasing number of start-ups in the country. Despite the number of start-ups in the country growing significantly a recent report by TiE and Zinnov recommended an urgent need to significantly increase the seed and early stage funding, which has tapered since 2017. According to a report by accelerator and VC 9Unicorns, India gets 20x less Series A funding than the US. in Series A. In 2018, India had only $4.1 billion pumped in Series A deals whereas US had a staggering $84.1 billion pumped.