Java Capital Launches Rs 75 Crore Seed Stage Fund

Java Capital, a seed stage focused SEBI registered Alternate Investment Fund (AIF), has launched its first Fund with a corpus of Rs 75 crore, including a greenshoe option of Rs 25 crore. The Fund has achieved its first close at INR 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 to 20 start-ups with an average first cheque size of Rs 2 crore. The Fund will reserve 50 per cent to make follow-on investments into top-performing portfolio companies. 

Java Capital was founded in 2020 by career venture capitalists and start-up ecosystem enablers Bhargavi V, Vinod Shankar and Karteek Pulapaka, who had over 25 years of experience across pre-seed, seed, and early-stage investments between them.  

The Fund will participate and lead investments in start-ups looking to raise pre-seed to pre-series A funding across deep-tech, SaaS, enterprise tech, fintech and climate and sustainability verticals. Of this, Java has already invested in four companies from this Fund.

Previously, Java Capital has invested in 23 start-ups, including Agnikul, KukuFM, BharatX, Better Opinions, Yellow Metal, The Eplane Company, Kindlife and Legistify. It has led rounds in 40 per cent of these companies. 

More than 50 per cent of the portfolio raised follow-on funding in up-rounds. Four of these companies were selected for the Y-Combinator accelerator post-Java’s investments into them. As of now the combined valuation of Java’s portfolio is $385 million. 

Bhargavi, who will be based in Silicon Valley, is building a strong network to help with market access for Java Capital’s portfolio in the US market. This provides its portfolio an edge to access capital in the North American market. 

She said, “We are super excited to announce the launch of our Fund and we are strong believers in long-term growth story for India, we work with our ecosystem and partners in the true spirit of long-term games with long-term people leads to significant outcomes for the society at large. We are in the venture space for the next couple of decades and would like to grow Java Capital as the first port of call for founders looking to start companies.”

Karteek Pulapaka, co-founder and partner at Java Capital added, “India is in the midst of a once-in-a-century transformation and cutting-edge start-ups will underscore this. Our vision is to meaningfully contribute to the Indian start-up ecosystem and be a part of this historic transformation.”