8i Ventures launches 'Origami' programme to close pre-seed funding in a month

Vikram Chachra, Founding Partner and Vishwanath V, General Partner, 8i Ventures

Early-stage venture capital firm 8i Ventures has carved a $10-million pre-seed funding initiative from its corpus of $50-million second fund.

Called Origami, the fund will try to close funding in quick time, helping founders to focus more on the product rather than spend time on the raising process, its founder Vikram Chachra told Moneycontrol.

8i Ventures will meet founders in a week, will tell them if the fund will invest or not in a fortnight, and close the deal within a month.

“Our focus is on speed. What we are looking at in this early stage is founder-market fit. Whether they have the expertise or experience in the product they are looking to build and what edge could they bring to the market,” Chachra said.

Founded in 2019 by Chachra and Vishwanath V, 8i Ventures will continue to commit the same funding amount of $250,000 to $2 million for the startups under the Origami programme. The fund focusses on fintech and direct-to-consumer brand startups.

According to Vishwanath, the fund has a template for due diligence and share holder agreements drawn from the venture’s experience of doing more than 50 seed deals in the past five years. 8i has backed startups like Slice, M2P, Blue Tokai,Easebuzz, Kodo and Carwale among others.

“Our shareholder agreement is friendly and balanced and has remained the same over the last few years whether it was the boom season or funding winter. We have a good sense of what is compliant or legal in India,” said Vishwanath.

8i is looking to invest 8-10 companies this year and 20 companies in two years under the Origami initiative.

“While there is lot of capital available, it is not available for founders now. This is the right time to startup as competition is low and good companies and founders will get funded,” Chachra said.

8i Ventures first fund was $13 million, while it did the first close of its $50 million second fund in late 2022.