Kettleborough VC, an early-stage venture capital firm founded by solo general partner Nisarg Shah, has marked the first close of its second fund, targeting a corpus of Rs 80 crore ($9.3 million).
The firm marked the first close with Rs 35 crore in commitments from family offices and successful entrepreneurs across India and the US. It is now looking to close the first few investments from the fund in the coming weeks.
Founded in 2021, Kettleborough VC closed its $5-million debut fund in late 2022, receiving commitments from business owners and startup founders. The inaugural fund backed 12 startups, including Zippmat, InPrime, Finhaat, Elivaas, Sumosave, and Gravity, and was the first institutional backer for nine of these.
“We are extremely disciplined about backing only execution journeys, wherein we invest in founders for whom the venture is the natural culmination of a decade or more of expertise in a specific domain. That’s the last-straw moment for us—the final convergence of market familiarity, lived experience, and deep networks,” said Shah, founder and general partner at Kettleborough VC.
The firm expects to complete deployment from Fund I in this quarter and is laying the groundwork for its first set of exits over the next few quarters. Several portfolio companies have gone on to raise follow-on rounds from marquee investors such as Z47, Omnivore, Lightspeed, 3one4 Capital, and Bessemer.
“Fund I has shown a clear PMF (product market fit) for this thesis—tracking nearly 2x (MOIC) in just about three years from the final close. We are now doubling down with Fund II to back around 10 more such companies,” Shah added.
With Fund II, Kettleborough VC plans to write initial seed cheques of $300,000 to $500,000, along with meaningful follow-on capital. While sector-agnostic, the fund is inclined towards financial services (NBFCs, insurance, fintech infrastructure), full-stack commerce solutions (B2B commerce, B2C brands), and software platforms (vertical SaaS, agentic AI-led platforms).