Java Capital, a seed stage focused, SEBI registered Alternate Investment Fund (AIF), has announced the launch of its first fund with a corpus of ₹75 crore including a greenshoe option of ₹25 crore.
The fund has achieved its first close at ₹30 crore and expects to do a final close in the next six months. The newly launched fund has already started investing in pre-seed to pre-series A start-ups and plans to build a portfolio of 15-20 start-ups, with an average first cheque size of ₹2 crore. The fund will reserve 50 per cent to make follow-on investments into top-performing portfolio companies.
Strong diversity
Vinod Shankar, Co-founder and Partner, Java Capital said, “We are possibly one of the only funds with strong diversity with three full-time partners and are led by deep conviction in the companies we invest in. We are willing to take outlier risks such as Agnikul — a company making India’s first 3D printed semi-cryo rocket engines or EPlane — Electric flying taxis. We believe, as a pre-seed/seed stage fund, if we can’t take such bets, there is no point in calling ourselves a VC.”
The fund will participate and lead investments in startups looking to raise pre-seed to pre-series A funding across deep-tech, SAAS, enterprise tech, fintech, and climate and sustainability verticals out of which Java has already invested in four companies from this fund.
Java Capital was founded in 2020 by career venture capitalists Bhargavi V, Vinod Shankar and Karteek Pulapaka. With over 25 years of experience between the founders across pre-seed, seed, and early-stage investments, the managing partners came together to launch Java Capital. Besides being experts at pre-seed to series A, the team has deep experience & expertise across diverse sectors, said the firm.