Early-stage tech venture capital firm Arkam Ventures has announced its Fund II, with a target size of $180 million.
The VC wants to build a portfolio of 20 tech start-ups and will continue to focus on sectors including manufacturing, tech, and EVs, while within Middle India Digitisation, it will continue to focus on financial services, skilling, food, agriculture, healthcare, mobility, and SaaS, it said in a statement.
Top-tier global institutional investors and family offices will form the LP base for Fund II. Current Arkam Fund I investors include British International Investment, SIDBI, Evolvence, Quilvest, US Institutional Investors, and large family offices.
Rahul Chandra, Managing Director, Arkam, said, “We believe the middle India digitisation and SaaS opportunity will lead to the creation of 100 new mega businesses over the next decade. Arkam II will participate in this exciting phase of value creation by leveraging its network of high-quality institutional LPs, seasoned investment team, and access to highly driven founders.”
Gaining the upper hand
From its $106 million Fund 1, it evaluated middle India opportunities across financial services, skilling, food, agriculture, mobility, healthcare, and SaaS. Its portfolio currently consists of 16 new-age companies, including fintech firms such as Jar and Kreditbee, food and agritech companies like Jai-Kisan and Jumbotail, skilling companies like Smartstaff and Cusmat, and SaaS companies like Spotdraft and Signzy.
“We launched Fund I with deep conviction on the Middle India digitisation and SaaS opportunity,” said Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director, Arkam. “As we deepen our Middle India and SaaS playbooks, it gives us an edge in identifying amazing companies and new business models and being the VC of choice for the best founders targeting this opportunity.”
Over the past three years, its portfolio has grown in size and scale while demonstrating the ability to monetise and claims to process more than one million loans a month.