India's Fundamental VC launches debut fund
Fundamental VC, an early-stage investor set up by two Indian angel investors and start-up ecosystem professionals, has launched its debut fund with a target of USD 130m.
The firm was founded by Saswat Sundar and Abhishek Rathi (pictured left to right) in March with a view to channelling their network connections into deal flow, portfolio support, and fundraising.
Sundar previously filled roles at investment platform LetsVenture, as well as start-ups such as hotel booking platform Oyo, digital banking player Stashfin, and most recently, Velocity, a start-up that provides revenue-based financing to e-commerce companies. Last year, Velocity raised a USD 20m round led by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures.
Rathi, whose experience includes LetsVenture and Citibank India, has made at least 12 disclosed investments as an angel investor. Many of these have been rolled over into the Fundamental portfolio. They include diagnostics platform Redcliffe Labs, which raised a USD 61m round in May, and social investment app StockGro, which raised a USD 32m round in January.
Fundamental is said to have LP support from a mix of unicorn founders, high net worth individuals, family offices, and technology executives from across Singapore, the US, and the Middle East. It plans to leverage industry connections to facilitate operational areas such as go-to-market strategy, user acquisition, product distribution, and hiring.
The fund will make about 30 pre-seed and seed investments of up to USD 1.5m per deal – considering companies before they define product-market fit – with a view to making follow-on investments through to the late stages. Target areas include consumer internet, healthcare, insurance, financial services, software-as-a-service, gaming, and artificial intelligence.
The firm wants to partner with promising and visionary founders by deploying during a start-up’s ongoing funding cycle, or “funding winter,” allowing entrepreneurs to focus on their businesses.
“[H]aving seen cycles of thousands of start-ups from an idea stage to growth and beyond, we have realised that there is a strong need for an approachable institutional capital support for early-stage founders,” Rathi said in a statement. “Our vision is to fill this gap by being the most reliable, approachable, founder-centric, and smart institutional capital support from day zero.”
India’s seed and angel scene has seen significant traction in recent years, with funds launched by the likes of Inflection Point Ventures, micro VC player Artha Venture Fund, Sequoia Capital India’s Surge accelerator, Indian Angel Network, and Antler. In addition to LetsVenture, other players in this space include JioGenNext, Mumbai Angels Network, and Anicut Capital.
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