Mumbai-based Cactus Venture Partners (CVP) has marked the final close of its debut fund at Rs 630 crore (approximately $77 million) to be deployed across climate tech, health tech and B2B SaaS startups over the next two years.
The early growth stage venture investment firm is backed by international Limited Partners (LPs) and domestic financial institutions, including the likes of SIDBI, Self-Reliant India Fund (SRI Fund), and the UP Startup Fund.
Sizeable commitments were received from international and domestic Family Offices and Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNIs), the company said.
Co-founded by Anurag Goel, Amit Sharma, and Rajeev Kalambi, the VC firm is looking to invest in eight to 10 startups in the said space, with a cheque size of $2-5 million.
The focus will continue to remain on Series A and early Series B fundraising stages, wherein the team will work closely with the founders to grow the product.
Speaking on the selection criteria, Sharma said, “The filtering criteria for us is not vertical, its Product-Market Fit (PMF), ie there should be decent gross margins. While a company should also have a significant multiplier in the good market to capitalise, it must have cost levers in place to go through weaker market.”
CVP’s portfolio includes five startups—Kapture CRM, Vitraya, AMPM, Auric, Lohum an Rubix—and an early exit from a fintech firm.
"We are in the late stages of evaluation of two companies and will most likely close them in the next 3 months. We are very actively investing this year and will continue to be cognizant of the quality," he said.
The latest fund comes at a time when the industry is hoping that private equity (PE) and venture capital players will drive robust fund flows after a muted 2023.
Investments by PEs and VC funds as of December 20, 2023, fell to a low of $27.9 billion across 697 transactions against $47.62 billion in 2022 across 1,364 deals.
Early-stage funding followed closely with a 70 percent drop, down to $2.2 billion from $7.3 billion, while seed-stage funding saw a decline of 60 percent —from $1.7 billion in 2022 to $678 million in 2023.
Experts have termed the funding slowdown a temporary adjustment and expect a better 2024.
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