Mela Ventures closes its first fund at Rs 320 cr

The fund was oversubscribed by 1.6x times from first close target

Mela Ventures, an early stage startup fund founded by Mindtree co-founders Krishnakumar Natarajan and Parthasarathy N. S, announced the close of its maiden fund MV Core Tech Fund-1 at Rs 320 crore.

The Sebi-approved Category-2 AIF fund for early-stage companies closed the fund at Rs 320 crore which was 1.6x times the first close target. The capital commitments were made by diverse group of global investors, Government institutions, tech professionals and family offices – including investments from Nippon India Digital Innovation AIF (NIDIA) and SIDBI Fund of Funds for Startups.

Mela Ventures will back early stage startup companies in the B2B space such as technology startups in areas of augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), artificial intelligence/ machine learning (AI/ML), drone and quantum computing.

With this fund corpus the Fund expects to invest in 14-18 startups. It has already invested in four startups and will be investing in three more in the next 30-45 days. The ticket size of the investment per company that Mela Ventures will make is around $1.5 million to $2 million.

“One of the primary reason for investors to back is because of the way we are focused in building our investment thesis. While 40 per cent of the fund will be used for making first investment, we have reserved 60 per cent of the corpus for follow on rounds. We want to be a patient investor who focuses on building the companies,” said Natarajan, managing partner, Mela Ventures.

The focus on B2B startups is also because that is where the expertise of the founder resides since they have successfully built a profitable company in Mindtree. That is why the focus will be on making startups that they invest in engrained with the right set of governance practices with a focus to create profitable and sustainable businesses.

“The last eighteen months showed us how much entrepreneurial talent India has and how fearless they can be when it comes to pushing technology and business boundaries. We have a broad footprint of opportunities in front of us and we believe that we are on the path to enable more category leaders. Beyond investments, our initiatives such as FoundrPwr aim to inspire the existing and future entrepreneurs to think beyond the usual.”