Gemba Capital marks initial close of maiden micro-VC fund at Rs 75 cr

Gemba Capital had launched its $10 million micro-VC Fund in September last year. On Monday, it announced the initial close of the fund at Rs 75 crores.

Adith Podhar, Founding Partner said, “We have reached the target of Rs. 75 crore and will announce the final close soon. We want to close all the ongoing discussions and we should get over-subscribed and touch Rs. 100 crores.”

Founded in 2018, Gemba Capital actively invests in Seed and pre-Seed rounds in India. The company plans to broadly invest 50 percent of the fund in fintech and SaaS companies. The balance will be opportunistically deployed in sectors such as Web 3.0, gaming, and deep tech, healthcare and B2B Commerce, it said in a press statement.

“Our LPs are a mix of CXOs, founders and Family Offices. We have been able to attract great quality LPs and we are extremely happy with the LP mix. Now the focus has shifted completely on deployment and investing in great startups at pre-seed and seed stage” said Podhar. “Our deal pipeline is strong, and we intend to make our first investment from May this year onwards. Our target remains to close 8 deals by December end”, he said.

Gemba Capital’s ticket size will be from $100K -250K as the first cheque. It has kept 35 percent of the fund size as reserve allocation for participating in follow-on rounds in winners from the portfolio.

Some of Gemba Capital’s pre-fund portfolio companies include, Plum and Verak (Insurtech); Wint, Strata and Grip (Alternative investment); Inai, ClickPost, Zuper, Tranzact, Threado (SaaS); Smartstaff, Unnati, Krishikan (Marketplace/Aggregators)

It is looking to add Venture Partners and team members in its investment team. Another new initiative which is in plans and will be launched soon is the “Scout Program” – which will enable highly networked individuals in the startup ecosystem to partner with Gemba Capital, the statement added.

Published on: Monday, May 09, 2022, 01:44 PM IST