Growth-stage venture capital firm Fundamentum Partnership, co-founded by Infosys veteran Nandan Nilekani and Helion Ventures’ co-founder Sanjeev Aggarwal, has launched its third vehicle The Fundamentum Partnership Fund III nearly four years after it closed its second fund.
The latest vehicle is targeting to raise a corpus of Rs 2,200 crore (around $231 million), which includes a Rs 400 crore greenshoe option. Nilekani, who is stepping in as the anchor investor, is making his largest bet in a VC firm, the firm said.
This comes only a little over a month after the launch of Fundamentum frontier-tech investment platform named F2A (Fundamentum Frontier Advisors) targeting a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore (around $210 million). The VC firm had highlighted its plans for expanding its investment playbook with a two-pronged strategy under the Fundamentum brand.
The third fund will focus on making Series B investments and sector-agnostic, scale-up investments. It will be led by Sanjeev Aggarwal, Prateek Jain, Mayank Kachhwaha and CFO Sanjay Chaturvedi.
“This new fund is being launched at a significant moment as India's startup ecosystem enters a new phase, driven by technology, formalisation, expanding domestic demand and a robust digital public infrastructure that was practically absent a decade ago. Indian startups in the coming decade will scale at a pace unlike any previous generation, and Fundamentum with its expanded leadership team, is well positioned to enable that journey," said Nilekani.
The fund will back companies in the early-growth stage, when companies have achieved product-market fit and are preparing to scale up. Its average investment ticket size will be between Rs 100 crore and Rs 150 crore.
The Fundamentum Partnership Fund III will focus on three core areas: consumer technology, fintech and AI-native and AI-enabled businesses. Within consumer technology, the firm will continue to bet on models across digital commerce, content, healthcare, edtech and emerging sectors. It will double down on opportunities across credit, savings, wealth management, insurance and financial infrastructure in fintech.
Fundamentum closed its second fund in 2022, collecting $270 million. It is currently at a gross IRR of 26%.
The first fund, launched in 2017, deployed $100 million. The investor has backed tech-driven startups in the consumer internet, fintech, B2B commerce, enterprise-tech, and AI-native and AI-enabled businesses.
Across the two vehicles, the firm has invested in 17 companies.
Its portfolio includes companies such as vernacular storytelling platform Kuku, devotional platform AppsForBharat, fixed-income investment firm Stable Money, ecosystem-embedded MSME financing startup FlexiLoans, omni-channel grocery player Apna Mart, content commerce startup Wishlink, B2B commerce ventures ProcMart and Geniemode, and banking infrastructure firm TransBnk.
The firm, set up in 2018, leads and co-leads $15–40 million funding rounds, investing in 4–5 start-ups each year and operates on the ‘investment + advice’ model. It typically takes board seats in its portfolio companies and actively partners with founders through the scale-up journey.
