Anicut Capital’s new Rs 175 crore fund to back 20+ startups

Anicut Capital’s new Grand Anicut Seed Fund, targeting a corpus of Rs 175 crore with a Rs 75 crore greenshoe, will back more than 20 early-stage startups.

The fund, a SEBI-registered Category I Alternative Investment Fund, will focus on pre-seed to Series A investments in deep-tech, enterprise-tech, consumer and financial services startups.

Cheque sizes from the fund are expected to range between Rs 5 crore and Rs 8 crore per investment.

Three deals have already been closed, and the fund is working toward a first close of about $10 million next month, backed by institutional investors, high-net-worth individuals and family offices.

This marks 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 collectively raised over Rs 6,000 crore in follow-on capital, with portfolio revenue growing tenfold.

Ajay Anand, Partner at Anicut Capital, said the firm’s early-stage strategy had been validated by its previous fund and that the new fund builds on that approach.

The launch comes amid a broader shift among Indian early-stage investors toward sectors beyond artificial intelligence, including manufacturing, deep-tech and enterprise software.

The fund’s debut comes in a week when Indian startups collectively raised $209 million, with manufacturing, aerospace, enterprise software and healthtech emerging as the standout investment themes.

Anicut expects to deploy the fund over approximately three years, allocating around 70 per cent to new investments and keeping 30 per cent in reserve for follow-on rounds.

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.

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.

(Image: Photo by Libreravi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)