Elev8 Venture Partners, a new venture capital firm that counts early-stage platform Venture Catalysts as an institutional backer, has floated a fund to raise $200 million to chase mid-stage VC deals in startups.
The fund will look to invest $5-15 million in Series B and C rounds in tech startups.
It is led by Navin Honagudi, who worked with early-stage investment firm Kae Capital for almost a decade and was a partner when he quit his active role in June. As per his LinkedIn profile, he remains a venture partner at Kae Capital.
Prior to Kae Capital, he had worked at Reliance ADA Group’s corporate VC unit Reliance Ventures and Darashaw.
“Even though liquidity in technology investments is drying up, Elev8 has received an overwhelming LP interest as well as partnership avenues with seed funds, as the current vintage offers an excellent opportunity to invest in growth stage companies and earn/target attractive returns,” Honagudi said.
He added: “We are in an advanced stage of discussions to establish several global partnerships which going forward will help our portfolio companies expand beyond India during their growth phase.”
Elev8 said it will focus on partnering with Indian seed funds who have let go of more than $500 million of pro-rata investment capital in 2021 in their portfolio startups.
Early-stage investors tend to have a right to invest at the same price at which new investors join the cap table of a startup in the future, in proportion (or pro-rata) to maintain their percentage stake.
If the fund does not have the dry powder or reserve money to do the follow-on investment in existing portfolio companies they lose out on the additional potential upside and their holding gets diluted.
Elev8 said that it has created a data-driven algorithm for its investment framework, giving its investors a better understanding of capital deployment strategy.
Elev8 also counts Anuj Golecha as a partner. Golecha, a partner at CA firm Banshi Jain and Associates, is also an active angel investor and co-founder of Venture Catalysts. He is also the owner of Samyakth Group.
Venture Catalysts has previously seeded or backed a few other VC funds including 9Unicorns and Beams Fintech Fund.
“We are enthusiastic about Elev8’s approach in a market where there is significant whitespace of domestic growth-stage VC funds. Elev8 reduces risk by entering the growth stage where companies have demonstrated product-market fit, resilience during downturns, and strong founders capable of driving their companies in the right direction,” said Golecha.
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