Arkam Ventures launches $180 million Fund II to invest in 20 early-stage tech startups

Top-tier global institutional investors and family offices will form the LP base for Fund II. Notably, Arkam's last fund attracted investors like British International Investment, SIDBI, Evolvence, Quilvest, US Institutional Investors, and large family offices.

From its $106 million Fund 1, the VC evaluated middle India opportunities across financial services, skilling, food, agriculture, mobility, healthcare, and SaaS. Its portfolio currently consists of 16 startups including fintech firms such as Jar, and Kreditbee, Food/Agritech companies like Jai-Kisan and Jumbotail, skilling companies like Smartstaff and Cusmat as well as SaaS companies like Spotdraft and Signzy.

“Portfolio companies like KreditBee, Smallcase, and Jar have created winning digital products for Middle India by reducing friction to adoption, building trust, and designing small-ticket and high-frequency business models that scale very efficiently. Our SaaS companies, like Spotdraft and Signzy, have successfully expanded their India product innovation to global markets,” said Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director, Arkam.

“We feel our thesis is a multi-generational opportunity and is in its early stages. As we deepen our Middle India and SaaS playbooks, it gives us an edge in identifying amazing companies and new business models and being the VC of choice for the best founders targeting this opportunity,” Srinivasa added.

Over the past three years, Akram said its portfolio has grown in size and scale while demonstrating the ability to monetise and claims to process more than one million loans a month.

“Arkam's "foundation first" approach helps portfolio companies create sustainable businesses with the right governance, organizational design and go-to-market strategies. Six of Arkam's Fund I investments are already leaders in their respective categories. They are redesigning markets with a tech-based business model and scaling rapidly to serve hundreds of millions of customers,” added Chandra.

Arkam Ventures doles out ticket cheque sizes between Rs 10-20 crore. With the new funds, the VC firm will look to write larger early-stage checks and back its strongest founders and companies in follow-on rounds, it said in a statement. The fund will also bolster its portfolio advisory function focused on organisational design, go-to-market (GTM) strategy, and finance & operations.

Several investors have launched or closed funds this year to invest in Indian startups — Blume Ventures, Lumikai, Airavat Capital and Avaana Capital made fund announcements just last week.