Java Capital Launches INR 75 Crore Seed Stage Fund The fund will reserve 50 per cent to make follow-on investments into top performing portfolio companies
By Teena Jose
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Java Capital, a Seed stage-focused Sebi registered Alternate Investment Fund (AIF), has announced the launch of its first fund with a corpus of INR 75 crore including a greenshoe option of INR 25 crore. The Fund has achieved its first close at INR 30 crore and expects to do a final close in the next 6 months. The Fund will participate and lead investments in startups looking to raise pre-seed to pre-series A funding across deep-tech, SAAS, enterprise tech, fintech and climate and sustainability verticals out of which Java has already invested in 4 companies from this fund, as per a statement by the company.
"We are possibly one of the only funds with strong diversity with three full time partners and are led by deep conviction in the companies we invest in. We are not afraid to lead rounds ourselves at this stage, which is again led by our deep conviction and contrarian to most other funds in this market. We believe as a pre-seed/seed stage fund if we can't take such bets, there is no point in calling ourselves a VC," said Vinod Shankar, co-founder and partner, Java Capital.
The newly launched fund has already started investing in pre-seed to pre-Series A startups and plans to build a portfolio of 15 to 20 startups with an average first cheque size of INR 2 crore. The fund will reserve 50 per cent to make follow-on investments into top performing portfolio companies. Previously, Java Capital has invested in 23 startups and has led rounds in 40 per cent of these companies. More than 50 per cent of the portfolio raised follow-on funding in up-rounds. As of now the combined valuation of Java's portfolio is $385 million, as per the company's statement.
Founded in 2020 by Bhargavi V, Vinod Shankar and Karteek Pulapaka, Java Capital is a Sebi registered Seed stage fund that primarily focuses on areas include sectors such as deep tech, SaaS, fintech, climate tech and consumer internet.
