Seafund is a category-2 alternative investment fund (AIF) registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Focused on early-stage technology startups, the fund house operates out of Bengaluru and Delhi.
Founded by Manoj Kumar Agarwal, Mayuresh Raut, and Narendra Bhandari, the firm has built companies across multiple business-to-business segments.
Agarwal, Managing Partner, speaks with businessline about the company’s investment portfolio, plans for raising fund II, and working with state governments. Edited excerpts from the interview:
Which are the sectors in focus?
We are an early-stage, sector-agnostic, stage-focused technology fund with deep-tech as one of our underlying themes. We fund mission-driven teams building technologies of the future. We intend to help the next set of technology founders with early venture capital to build highly scalable and efficient global businesses.
Alongside fintech, enterprise SaaS [software as a service], and healthcare, the fund focuses on companies in the AI, semiconductors, space, energy, climate, and materials segments.
How do you plan to deploy the two funds raised by you?
Fund I was a ₹25-crore micro-fund with 13 active startups and one exit. It was deployed in sectors including SaaS, fintech, hardware IoT, ed-tech, and media-tech.
In this recently built portfolio, there have been 11 follow-up rounds from marquee angels and VC networks. Five will soon raise their Series As and two have already raised them.
We are currently raising our ₹250-crore fund II with an average investment size of ₹2-5 crore for sectors like fintech (neobanking, insur-tech, digital payments, reg-tech, wealth-tech, and core APIs) and SaaS (ed-tech, direct-to-consumer, healthcare, creator economy, gaming, information security, clean energy, vertical SaaS), agri-tech, health-tech, IoT and drone, EV and logistics, deep-tech, Web3, and gaming.
What is in your investment portfolio across both funds?
In fund I, startups like Advarisk, Bestdoc, Genrobotics, Clootrack, inc42, Wizgo, and Zippee were included. Docker Vision, Swapp Design, Simactricals, Evhicle, and Red Wing are some of the startups covered under fund II. The GPs [general partners] have made about 30 other investments through other entities including startups like Salt, Defy, The Ayurveda Experience, Truly Madly, Celsius, Investmint, etc.
Which are the geographies in focus?
We expect to raise 20-25 per cent of our fund from Southeast Asia. The LPs [limited partners] are keen to invest in Indian startups spanning deep-tech sectors like drone, and space-tech.
Any initiatives beyond your usual investments?
We work with several state governments to build startup hubs. Currently we are working with Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) and have invested in seven companies there. The fund has partnerships with IITs, IIMs, Nasscom, TiE, Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) of the Ministry of Defence, and the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM), among others.
Recently, we invested ₹5 crore across five sustainability-focused startups selected through an exhaustive nationwide process. Along with the monetary investment, the companies will benefit from market access and acceleration programmes over the next few months.
The fund has invested in Redwings, Docker Vision, Swapp Design, Simatricals, and Evhicle.