8i Ventures starts Fund II raise, with a target corpus of ₹400 crore

8i Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund focussed on the consumer e-commerce and fintech spaces, has initiated the process of raising Fund II with a target corpus of ₹400 crore and the first close expected early next year. Fund II will target investments in 15-20 early-stage start-ups, a top executive told BusinessLine.

Founded in late 2018 by entrepreneur and angel investor Vikram Chachra and Vishwanath V, a former executive at Hindustan Lever, Urban Ladder and Voonik; 8i Ventures has made investments in seven early-stage start-ups from its ₹100-crore Fund I. Of these, four are core investments, two in fintech - M2P (Card issuing platform) and CGRA (Digital Risk & Fraud Management) and 2 in Consumer - Blue Tokai Coffee and MonkSays (Indian Superfood brand) and 3 are pre-seed investments that range from $50,000 to $150,000. Core investments made by the VC firm are typically in the range of $500,000 that back insightful solutions through the seed stage, as well as follow-through investments in Series A and B rounds.

“India’s internet GDP is growing, while its offline GDP is still in recovery mode. Today every financial transaction begins and ends digitally on screens. The sudden migration of the economy to the cloud has opened up a plethora of pain-points that were not evident in the pre-Covid hybrid world. It is evident now that there is an urgent need to create the digital infrastructure on which our internet GDP will run,” said Vikram Chachra, who has made Angel investments in 31 start-ups including 22 at seed stage over the last 13 years.

At the seed stage, 8i Ventures backs founders with capital and a strong belief in how their vision can shape the world. “The first 6-12 months of a start-up are the most crucial in building a winning DNA of a start-up. As former operators and founders, this is where we add the most value by working with our founders to help them target the right goals and operating metrics,” said Chachra.

Stating that the VC firm’s sector focus will continue to remain on fintech and consumer e-commerce that are the two areas driving the growth of the Indian economy, he said, “Before this pandemic is over, we will see the foundation of an ‘instant economy’ come up where everything to do with money will happen in minutes and all physical commerce will happen within hours. We are backing challenger brands as well as the digital infrastructure that enable them. And have no doubt that the 2019-24 vintage of start-ups is poised to produce some of the best venture capital outcomes in investment history.”