India micro VC player Artha raises $30m debut fund

There are about 50 LPs in the fund, most of which are domestic family offices and listed companies. High net worth individuals, Small Industries Development Bank of India, and Singularity Holdings also contributed capital. A first close of INR1 billion came in 2019.

"The real credit of closing this fund goes to our founders and my fantastic team. The effect of the two pandemic-led lockdowns shook our portfolio founders and our team,” Anirudh Damani (pictured), who founded AVF in 2018, said.

“However, each one stuck to their task, and our founders responded to each obstacle as an opportunity. As a result, our portfolio-wide revenues grew 3x in 12 months without raising additional capital.”

Damani, an angel investor and entrepreneur, parlayed an early career in energy into creating a renewables advisory firm, Artha Energy Resources, which was branded after his family office Artha Group. This led to the establishment of Artha India Ventures, a unit of the family office that has backed more than 85 start-ups globally. Its standout investment is Indian hotel booking unicorn Oyo.

Damani claims AVF is India’s first micro VC, which are typically defined as angel consortia pooling less than $100 million. Its fund will make 10-12 accelerator-stage investments a year across B2B and B2C models with a special interest in direct-to-consumer plays and a budding appetite for gaming. Around 65% of the corpus has been allocated to follow-on rounds.

There are at least nine portfolio companies to date. These include sports media service Kabaddi Adda, children’s extra-curricular activities platform HobSpace, children’s transportation provider PiggyRide, space tech company Agnikul, taxi manager Everest Fleet, food marketplace Daalchini, cinema chain Jadooz, tea stand operator Haazri, and P2P lending platform LenDenClub.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Fundraising
• Venture
• India
• seed
• Artha Venture Fund