Stellaris receives IFC commitment for $160 mn Fund II

Bengaluru headquartered early stage venture capital firm Stellaris Venture Partners has received a commitment of $25 million from International Finance Corporation (IFC) for its second fund. 

The investment arm of World Bank was also a limited partner (LP) in the firm’s maiden fund of $100 million, which was launched in 2016. 

Dubbed the Stellaris Venture Partners India Trust II, the second fund looks to raise $160 million to back 20-25 startups in the seed and Series A stages, an IFC disclosure said. Its focus sectors include healthcare, education, financial services, logistics, consumer internet and enterprise technology sectors.   

“Investment from a lifecycle investor such as the IFC will position the fund to have better access to co-investment and follow-on capital for its investee companies which are particularly valuable for early stage businesses seeking to scale,” the disclosure said. 

Founded by former executives of Helion Venture Partners Rahul Chowdhri, Ritesh Banglani and Alok Goyal, the maiden fund of Stellaris counts as LPs Cisco Investments, Infosys Innovation Fund, SIDBI Venture Capital Fund, apart from IFC which had committed $10 million in it. 

According to VCCEdge, the firm’s $100 million maiden fund has invested in 22 startups, including personal care brand Mamaearth, AI banking solutions provider Signzy and marketing analytics platform Slintel.  

In 2020, early stage venture capital funds in India have closed multi-million dollar corpus for investments. In October, Elevation Capital, an early backer in Paytm and ShareChat, announced a $400 million SAIF Partners India VII for deployment in the country. Lightspeed India Partners announced closing its $275 million third India fund in August. Blume Ventures closed its third fund at $102 million in February.