Kettleborough Venture Capital firm plans to raise ₹80 crore for its second investment fund.
**Kettleborough VC Launches Fund II, Focusing on Founder-Led Businesses**
Venture capital firm Kettleborough VC, led by investor Nisarg Shah, has announced the launch of Fund II with a target corpus of Rs 80 crore. The fund, which has already marked its first close at Rs 35 crore, is designed to back about 10 more deeply experienced founders at the very inception of their ventures.
Kettleborough VC's investment strategy is focused on partnering with founders who have over a decade of domain expertise, strategic relationships, and execution readiness to build high-leverage businesses. The firm's approach is to invest in founders for whom the venture is the natural culmination of a decade or more of expertise in a specific domain.
While sector-agnostic in principle, Fund II has a pronounced tilt toward "Dhandha-first" businesses—firms built around substantial, real-world commercial activity rather than speculative growth. Key sectors of interest include non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), insurance, fintech infrastructure, full-stack commerce platforms, vertical SaaS, and agentic AI solutions.
The fund plans to make initial seed investments of $300,000-$500,000 (₹2.5–4.2 crore) per company. A meaningful portion of the fund is reserved for follow-on investments in the highest-performing portfolio companies, reflecting a commitment to double down on winners.
Speaking on the launch of Fund II, Shah mentioned that they are extremely disciplined about backing execution journeys only. The firm was the first institutional fund to commit to nine of the 12 start-ups it backed in its inaugural fund, including Zippmat, InPrime, Finhaat, Elivaas, Sumosave, Gravity, and others. Fund I, the previous fund, has shown a clear Product-Market Fit (PMF) for this thesis, tracking nearly 2x in just about 3 years from the final close.
Several companies in Kettleborough's portfolio have raised strong follow-on rounds from marquee institutional investors, indicating the fund's success in identifying and supporting promising start-ups. The firm expects to wrap up the deployment of Fund I this quarter and will begin laying the groundwork for its first set of exits, expected over the next few quarters.
In summary, Kettleborough VC's Fund II is designed to identify and back founders whose startups are a direct extension of their long-term professional journey, prioritizing execution-ready, capital-efficient businesses in sectors where the founder’s deep expertise can drive substantial commercial outcomes. The fund's disciplined, conviction-led approach is reinforced by a strong track record and a clear focus on both initial and follow-on capital deployment in its most promising bets.
- Kettleborough VC's Fund II, with a target corpus of Rs 80 crore, is set to support 10 more experienced founders, focusing on substance-based businesses rather than speculative growth, such as non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), fintech infrastructure, and others.
- The firm plans to invest an initial seed capital of $300,000-$500,000 (₹2.5–4.2 crore) per company and reserves a significant portion for follow-on investments in the top-performing startups, demonstrating a commitment to backing winners.
- Kettleborough VC's investment strategy centers around partnering with founders who have over a decade of domain expertise, strategic relationships, and execution readiness, aiming to build high-leverage businesses in various sectors like fintech, full-stack commerce platforms, vertical SaaS, and agentic AI solutions.
- The founding investor, Nisarg Shah, emphasizes that Kettleborough VC is disciplined in backing only execution journeys, evident from the firm's history with Fund I, where they were the first institutional fund to commit to nine out of 12 startups, including companies like Zippmat and Finhaat.
- Kettleborough VC aims to lay the groundwork for its first set of exits over the next few quarters, as the firm anticipates success by using its disciplined, conviction-led approach to invest in and support promising startups, as demonstrated by the strong follow-on rounds raised by several portfolio companies from marquee institutional investors.
