VC firm Stellaris Venture Partners, an early backer of Mamaearth and Whatfix, has closed its third $300-million fund.

In continuation of its early-stage tech investment strategy, the firm will invest in 25-30 start-ups over the next three years.

Rahul Chowdhri, Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners said, “India’s start-up ecosystem has transformed since we started our fund with a 4x growth in deal flow and a rise in repeat entrepreneurs and founders from successful start-ups. With this new fund, we’re excited to back founders using technology to solve deep problems in large markets. Our team, consisting of former entrepreneurs and business builders, brings deep expertise and global networks in key sectors such as consumer tech, AI, SaaS and financial services to support our portfolio companies throughout their journey.”

As part of the new fund launch, Stellaris has announced key leadership appointments. Naman Lahoty, a repeat entrepreneur and previously a Principal with the firm, has been appointed as Partner. He joined Stellaris in 2019 to focus on consumer investments, and has invested in AI webcomic start-up Dashtoon and D2C consumer brand Zouk, among others.

Chetan GMS, previously SVP Finance, will now be the firm’s CFO, while Preseedha Premnath has been appointed as the firm’s General Counsel. Additionally, Vardhan Dharnidharka, an AI/ML engineering leader previously based in New York, has joined as an Investment Principal and relocated to Bengaluru.

Since its inception in 2017, Stellaris has backed 44 tech start-ups across two funds, 60 per cent of which were inception-stage businesses. The firm typically participates as a lead investor in seed and series A rounds of start-ups, and continues to support its portfolio companies across multiple rounds of financing.

“With its $4-trillion GDP growing at 6-8 per cent per annum, India is one of the few markets in the world offering both scale and growth to deliver venture returns. A combination of unique public digital infrastructure, a young population, mass adoption of smartphones and receptivity of public markets to technology start-ups makes India an attractive destination for venture capital,” added Ritesh Banglani, Partner, Stellaris Venture Partners.

The firm is an early investor in consumer brand Mamaearth, which went public last year, and in Whatfix, a digital adoption platform that recently raised a $125-million Series E round. More recently, the firm has backed EV financing start-up Turno, credit-on-UPI provider Kiwi, AI SaaS companies Orbitshift and CARPL.ai, credit improvement platform Goodscore and D2C consumer brand Nestasia.

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