Arkam Ventures closes $106 m early-stage fund

Venture capital firm Arkam Ventures has announced closure of its $106 million early-stage fund, focussed on technology innovation.

The maiden fund for Arkam Ventures is backed by the global institutions such as British International Investment Plc (previously CDC, UK), Nippon India Digital Innovation, Evolvence Group, a global fund of funds and SIDBI.

Arkam invests in pre-series A to Series B companies in the range of ₹10-20 crore.

The Arkam portfolio includes category leading companies such as Smallcase, Krazybee, Jar, Smartstaff, Jai Kisan, Signzy, SpotDraft, Wint Wealth and Invact. The firm offers help on growth strategy, talent, and sales.

Seven of these twelve companies have already raised follow-up rounds at significant marks ups since the original investment.

Early backers include large family offices and well known start up founders such as Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Binny Bansal, Vijay Shekhar and Rajesh Mago.

Arkam’s focus areas include digital category creators in verticals such as financial services, healthcare, food and agri, education and logistics.

“Arkam’s investment strategy is thesis led, highly selective, and leverages the firm’s strengths in discovering and partnering with unproven product-led companies that subsequently scale to win massive markets,” Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director of the VC firm said.

The Fund is led by partners Rahul Chandra and Bala Srinivasa.

Chandra was previously a co-founder at Helion Ventures, where he backed over a dozen start-ups across three funds. Srinivasa was a Partner with Kalaari Capital. Prior to Kalaari, Bala was Managing Director at Amba Research where he led sales and growth culminating with an acquisition by Moody’s.

“While there are many choices for start-up financing, founders value investors with the experience and networks that can help across various phases of growth, and especially during challenging circumstances,” Rahu Chandra said.

“At Arkam, we invest significant time with our founders to help lay the foundation for growth in the company’s formative years,” he said in a statement.

Published on


April 13, 2022