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Merak Ventures said Monday it has floated a sector-agnostic, early-stage venture capital firm and is targeting a corpus of $100 million (Rs 800 crore) under the maiden fund to invest in seed-stage business to business (B2B) and emerging technologies companies in India.
Co-founded by Manu Rikhye and Sheetal Bahl, who have been managing another small seed-stage fund in the same domain with a smaller corpus, Merak said the new fund will proactively chase themes including: climatetech (encompassing agritech, mobility, carbon, climate finance and digital solutions), insurtech and enterprise SaaS.
It will look to back 18-20 startups over the next three-four years.
Manu Rikhye, Partner, Merak Ventures, said, “The genesis of Merak is our success and learning while managing a fund, and the sustained confidence of our investors. There are passionate founders who want to solve real world problems and we want to empower them, not just with capital but as a mentor-partner.”
Sheetal Bahl, Partner, Merak Ventures, added, “Merak is the culmination of a decade of thinking, learning, and investing in the Indian startup ecosystem. It represents our strong belief that financial gains and impact, whether on industry, people, or the planet, are not mutually exclusive.”
Both have been managing growX Ventures Fund I having backed 16 companies including Cynlr, Pixxel and Progcap.
While most VCs operating in India do not distinguish between consumer or business focused ventures, some have consciously picked a strategy to back B2B ventures where the cash burn is lower and have a higher probability of success.
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