Blume Ventures marks first close of third fund at ₹295 crores, targets a corpus of ₹590 crores

Mumbai-based early stage venture capital firm Blume Ventures has marked the first close of its third fund at around ₹295 crores ($40 million).

The firm is targetting a total corpus of around ₹590 crores ($80 million) for its Fund III. It is looking to complete the fundraising over the next couple of months, with a further commitment of $20 million from new and existing investors.

Blume Ventures has roped in anchor investors from India, US, Japan, and Asia for its Fund III, along with some existing limited partners who have invested in the firm’s previous funds.

Blume Ventures was founded by Karthik Reddy and Sanjay Nath in 2010. It invests in pre-series A and series A rounds in startups leveraging technology to solve domestic problems. The VC has more than 75 Indian startups in its vast portfolio.

With the new fund III, the firm is looking to invest around 60-65% in domestic heavy sectors including healthcare, financial services, travel, commerce and brands, jobs and education, and digital media & entertainment.

The other 35-40% of the fund will be invested in innovative software technology like cloud, AI, analytics, SaaS, blockchain, and deep tech to help startups create innovative solutions across agriculture, security, robotics, and IoT, with local talent and the ability to scale globally.

With a larger corpus, Blume Ventures will be writing larger cheques ranging from $500,000 to $1.25 million, as it restricts its investments to around 30-35 startups, over the course of the next three years.

Sanjay Nath, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Blume Ventures, said, “We have always been focussed on the pre-series A and series-A stages. Through this fund, we will have greater reserves to support our best portfolio companies for future rounds. We are also looking to bet on opportunities that may be at the stage of ‘pre-product market fit’ if the market opportunity is significant.”

Some of the prominent startups in its portfolio include Unacademy, HealthifyMe, Dunzo, BHIVE Workspace, and GreyOrange, among many others.

Last month, pi Ventures closed its first fund at ₹225 crores, exceeding its target corpus ₹195 crores.

Earlier in July 2018, Artha Venture Fund marked the first close of its maiden fund at ₹40 crores. Inventus Capital announced the first close of its third fund at ₹200 crores. Also, CIIE’s Bharat Innovation Fund marked its first close of ₹690 crore fund.

With a number of India-focused funds raising money to invest in the Indian startup ecosystem, the future looks bright for the Indian startups.