The early-stage venture capital fund 8i Ventures has introduced a seed funding program ‘Origami’ to back early stage founders.
Under the initiative, the firm is looking to invest between the range of $250,000 to $2 million in the pre-seed to early revenue phases, Vikram Chachra, the founding partner told businessline.
For this, 8i Ventures has allocated $10 million from its Fund II and will back eight to ten startups this year, he added.
In the middle of the funding winter season, 8i Ventures announced the first close of its $50 million second fund by raising $25 million. The firm has allotted $10 million from Fund II to launch this initiative. The program will ensure a streamlined process with a response within 1 week, a term sheet in 2 weeks, and deal closure in just 4 weeks.
Founded in 2019 by Chachra and Vishwanath V, it has backed seven early-stage startups from its maiden $13 million Fund I, including companies such as Slice, M2P, Easebuzz and Blue Tokai.
“We remain open to all possibilities, and sectors,” said Chandra. “We want to find the great founders, and teams with a clear insight and back them early so that they can spend their time building,” he added. “There are a lot of founders who are very excited about building, but somehow that funding winter remains persistent.”
“Origami is meant to simplify fundraising for founders who would prefer to use their bandwidth on customers rather than on long fundraising cycles, said Vishwanath V, Partner, 8i Ventures. “We’re here to support great teams and help them build successful ventures with a swift, transparent decision-making process,” he added.