Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-focussed accelerator fund Upekkha on January 11th announced the first close of its new fund at $15 million led by WestBridge Capital as the fund wants to double down on SaaS and AI sectors.
The total corpus of the fund is around $40 million and the Upekkha Fund will invest in over 70 early-stage startups in 2024. Godard Abel, CEO of G2.com, one of the largest B2B SaaS marketplaces is among the LPs in the first close.
"What we are betting on is that just like the mobile era where the mobile app side of things were all startups, apps on top of AI for B2B companies will continue to be within startups...Every six months we will choose a cohort and we will invest in them," said Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Managing Partner at Upekkha.
Upekkha’s SaaS Outlook 2023 report stated that The funding landscape for SaaS startups is undergoing a dynamic transformation. As per projections, Upekkha is betting on India, pre-seed and seed investments continuing to grow.
"It is still early days for AI people are still figuring out what to do in AI. Our thesis was that every SaaS company will have AI. They will either be delivering products powered by AI or AI-enabled features like Copilot or more towards the operational side of the business," Krishnamoorthy said.
Upekkha's fundraising comes at a moment when larger investor sentiment is that of caution and many are betting big on SaaS and AI sectors. Upekkha plans to invest close to $125,000 in each startup.
In February of 2022, Upekkha raised around $9 million from WestBridge Capital to launch a rolling fund which was a first-of-its-kind alternative investment fund (AIF) in India.
“WestBridge was started to help Indian startups go global. Before Upekkha, India did not have a robust ecosystem and platform that assisted early-stage SaaS entrepreneurs in building strong successful businesses," Said Sumir Chadha, Co-founder & Managing Partner at WestBridge Capital.
Last year, Upekkha shifted from a pure-play SaaS accelerator to an AI SaaS fund where it decided to focus on and invest in startups that are developing innovative generative AI software applications, betting big on the segment.
Founded in 2017 by Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Maruthavanan and Shekar Nair, Upekkha is a SaaS accelerator platform that mentors and trains SaaS companies.
Over the last 6 years, Upekkha has collaborated with more than 250 Indian B2B SaaS founders. Some of its portfolio companies include API Platform, Almabase, Gimlet.ai, Labellerr and more.
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