Anicut Capital has floated the Grand Anicut Seed Fund, an early-stage investment vehicle with a target corpus of Rs 175 crore and a greenshoe option of Rs 75 crore.
Registered with SEBI as a Category I Alternative Investment Fund, the vehicle will invest across pre-seed to Series A stages in deep-tech, enterprise-tech, consumer and financial services startups.
The firm intends to back more than 20 startups through the fund, with cheque sizes typically ranging from Rs 5 crore to Rs 8 crore.
Three deals have already been closed, and the fund is aiming for a first close of roughly $10 million in the coming month, drawing from institutional investors, high-net-worth individuals and family offices.
The fund is Anicut Capital’s second early-stage vehicle, following the Grand Anicut Angel Fund, which has backed 68 startups since 2021.
Companies in that earlier portfolio have together raised more than Rs 6,000 crore in follow-on funding, with average portfolio revenue growing tenfold.
Ajay Anand, Partner at Anicut Capital, said the firm’s early-stage strategy had proven itself through the previous fund and that the new vehicle would build on that track record.
The launch comes as Indian early-stage investors increasingly look beyond artificial intelligence toward sectors including manufacturing, deep-tech and enterprise software.
The fund’s debut comes in a week that saw Indian startups raise a combined $209 million, with manufacturing, aerospace, enterprise software and healthtech drawing the largest share of investor attention.
Anicut plans to deploy the fund over roughly three years, with about 70 per cent earmarked for new investments and the remaining 30 per cent set aside for follow-on rounds in existing portfolio companies.
India’s early-stage funding environment has seen investors increasingly diversify beyond artificial intelligence in recent months, with manufacturing, deep-tech, enterprise software and healthtech drawing larger allocations.
Category I Alternative Investment Funds registered with SEBI are typically used by venture capital and angel investment vehicles in India to pool capital from institutional and high-net-worth investors under a regulated structure.
(Image: Photo by Libreravi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
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