Kisho Capital floats rolling fund to bet on tech startups

Early-stage venture capital fund Kisho Capital has announced the launch of a rolling fund to invest in tech startups.

“The whole idea for Kisho Capital was conceptualised as a rolling fund with investors from a few of India’s biggest corporate houses and startups,” Ankush Nijhawan, co-founder of Kisho Capital, said in a statement.

A rolling fund gives investment firms the flexibility to raise a fraction of the total fund and start investing immediately. It also continuously helps increase the fund size.

The fund aims to invest in around 20 startups annually. It will invest up to Rs 1 crore (about $137,000) each in a startup at the seed or pre-Series A level.

The fund is sector-agnostic and will scout for opportunities in startups engaged in home automation, healthtech, social community, business-to-business, software-as-a-service and fintech.

The fund was founded by Nijhawan and Akshay Chhugani. Both have entrepreneurial experience — Nijhawan is managing director at travel conglomerate Nijhawan Group and Chhugani had previously sold his travel startup The Indian Backpacker to ixigo.

Over the past three years, the founders have made personal investments in more than 20 startups and walked away with exits from startups such as Dineout, Fleetx, My GreenBox and Qdesq.

The launch of the fund is good news for Indian startups amid the coronavirus pandemic even as the drive to vaccinate people in the country has been rolled out.

Overall venture-stage investments plunged 30% to less than 400 in 2020 from 573 in 2019, when it had risen from 513 in 2018, according to VCCEdge, the data and research arm of VCCircle.

Angel and seed deals rose to almost 700 last year from 658 in 2019 despite the pandemic.