Representative image. Photo: Photo by Libreravi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Anicut Capital has rolled out the Grand Anicut Seed Fund, targeting a corpus of Rs 175 crore with an additional Rs 75 crore greenshoe option.
The fund, a SEBI-registered Category I Alternative Investment Fund, will focus on pre-seed to Series A rounds in deep-tech, enterprise-tech, consumer and financial services startups.
Anicut plans to invest in more than 20 startups, with cheque sizes typically between Rs 5 crore and Rs 8 crore per deal.
Three investments have already been closed, and the fund is working toward a first close of about $10 million next month, drawing capital from institutional investors, high-net-worth individuals and family offices.
This is Anicut Capital’s second early-stage fund, following the Grand Anicut Angel Fund, which has made 68 investments since 2021.
Startups from that earlier fund have raised over Rs 6,000 crore in follow-on capital collectively, with portfolio revenue growing tenfold.
Ajay Anand, Partner at Anicut Capital, said the firm’s early-stage approach had been validated by its previous fund and that the new one would extend that strategy.
The move comes amid a wider pivot among Indian early-stage investors toward sectors beyond artificial intelligence, including manufacturing, deep-tech and enterprise software.
The launch arrives in a week when Indian startups raised $209 million in aggregate, with manufacturing, aerospace, enterprise software and healthtech standing out as the leading investment themes.
The fund is expected to be deployed over about three years, with roughly 70 per cent allocated to new investments and 30 per cent kept in reserve for follow-on funding rounds.
Category I Alternative Investment Funds registered with SEBI are typically used by venture capital and angel investment vehicles in India to pool capital from institutional and high-net-worth investors under a regulated structure.
India’s early-stage funding environment has seen investors increasingly diversify beyond artificial intelligence in recent months, with manufacturing, deep-tech, enterprise software and healthtech drawing larger allocations.
(Image: Photo by Libreravi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
