Bengaluru-based venture capital (VC) firm Arkam Ventures has launched its Fund II with a target size of $180 million. 

With the help of this recently-launched fund, the company will focus on building a thesis-driven and concentrated portfolio by venturing deep into its existing sectors. In addition to this, the VC will categorise new companies taking a dominant role in the domains like manufacturing and tech. 

The Fund II will be utilised to invest in 20 tech start-ups. Global institutional investors and family offices will form the LP (limited partners) base of the fund. In its Fund I, Arkam worked with British International Investment, SIDBI, Evolvence, Quilvest, US Institutional Investors, and large family offices. 

Addressing the development,  Rahul Chandra, Managing Director, Arkam,  says, “Arkam's "foundation first" approach helps portfolio companies create sustainable businesses with the right governance, organizational design and go-to-market strategies. Six of Arkam's Fund I investments are already leaders in their respective categories. They are redesigning markets with a tech-based business model and scaling rapidly to serve hundreds of millions of customers. We believe the Middle India digitisation and SaaS opportunity will lead to the creation of 100 new mega businesses over the next decade. Arkam II will participate in this exciting phase of value creation by leveraging its network of high-quality institutional LPs, seasoned investment team and access to highly driven founders.” 

Sharing the learnings from Fund I, Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director, Arkam, adds, “We launched Fund I with deep conviction on the Middle India digitisation and SaaS opportunity.  Our LPs supported us, and it’s been gratifying to see the thesis play out both at the macro level and with Arkam investments. Portfolio companies like KreditBee, Smallcase, and Jar have created winning digital products for Middle India by reducing friction to adoption, building trust, and designing small-ticket and high-frequency business models that scale very efficiently. Our SaaS companies, like Spotdraft and Signzy, have successfully expanded their India product innovation to global markets. We feel our thesis is a multi-generational opportunity and is in its early stages. As we deepen our Middle India and SaaS playbooks, it gives us an edge in identifying amazing companies and new business models and being the VC of choice for the best founders targeting this opportunity.”