Elev8 Venture Partners marks final close of maiden fund at Rs 1,400 crore

Navin Honagudi, Managing Partner at Elev8 Venture Partners

Growth-stage investor Elev8 Venture Partners has marked the final close of its maiden fund at Rs 1,400 crore ($160 million) — about 20 percent lower than its initial $200 million target.

The Bengaluru-based firm opted for a smaller corpus to ease return pressures and lean on co-investments from its limited partners (LPs), a model it believes will allow larger overall capital flows into portfolio companies without stretching the fund size.

The growth-stage investor has already deployed one-third of the corpus through investments of $8–14 million each across five startups — astrology platform Astrotalk, identity verification firm IDfy, investment platform Smallcase, logistics player Porter, and BNPL company Snapmint.

The remaining capital will be deployed over the next 12–18 months. The firm will focus its investments in sectors like fintech, software-as-a-service, business-to-business (B2B) platforms and consumer brands.

The firm will make investments in three more companies this year, and back five startups next year. It is aiming to fully deploy the capital from its fund by the end of 2026 to mid-2027, with an average cheque size of $12-15 million.

“Broadly, the optimism among investors (limited partners) continues to remain high. There is a lot of capital waiting to be deployed in India. There is enough money waiting for the right companies and opportunities,” Navin Honagudi, Managing Partner at Elev8 Venture Partners, told Moneycontrol.

Launched in September 2022, Elev8 had initially set out to raise a $200 million corpus, before closing at $160 million. The fund is anchored by KB Investment, part of South Korea’s largest financial conglomerate KB Holdings, which has contributed about 20 percent of the total corpus.

Elev8’s limited partner base is split roughly evenly between domestic and foreign investors, including institutions, family offices, and high net-worth individuals (HNIs). Backed by incubator Venture Catalysts, the fund is targeting companies across fintech, software-as-a-service (SaaS), business-to-business (B2B) platforms and consumer brands.

Within consumer, Elev8 is looking at direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands and marketplaces such as Astrotalk. In fintech, its focus is on infrastructure plays and consumer internet models emerging out of lending businesses, such as Snapmint.

Honagudi said that while AI has become integral to how portfolio companies operate, the firm is not looking at AI as a standalone sectoral bet.

“AI is now a given in all the companies we evaluate. Our portfolio firms are already using it to cut costs, boost revenue, and improve customer retention. What we’re not seeing yet are large language model (LLM)-type businesses in India, or AI firms crossing the $5–10 million revenue mark. We typically start evaluating companies only once they cross $15 million in revenue,” he said.

The firm is keeping about 70–75 percent of its capital for first cheques and the remainder for follow-on investments. According to the Elev8, its portfolio companies are growing at over 30 percent annually while remaining profitable — a balance that it believes will define India’s next market leaders.

This comes at a time when venture capital fundraising in India has picked up after a year-long lull. The total capital raised by VCs in 2025 so far, at over $3.2 billion, has already surpassed the $2.7 billion raised in the whole of 2024.

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The list of recent fund closes includes large foreign investors such as Accel and Bessemer Venture Partners, as well as domestic names like Prime Venture Partners and Cornerstone VC. Several other firms are in advanced talks to close funds later this year, Moneycontrol reported earlier.