Early-stage micro-venture capital fund Artha Venture Fund (AVF) has launched Artha Access to invest in pre-seed funding rounds via its associations with multiple accelerators across the country.

The association with accelerators will enable AVF to have a smooth deal execution, adequate handholding and fast turnaround times. Additionally, the accelerators will carry out the due diligence and onboarding process. Besides co-investing with the accelerators, the early-stage micro-venture capital fund will provide the startups access to its widespread network and ecosystem.

For this, the venture capital fund has earmarked a corpus from its closed fund of Rs 225 crores, and through Artha Access, will invest in 40 deals by 2025. It will invest up to Rs 25 lakh in each transaction. 

Anirudh A. Damani, Managing Partner, Artha Venture Fund, stated that the VC fund is thrilled to have partnered with India Accelerator, Huddle and IIM Calcutta Innovation Park. Leveraging these partnerships, AVF has just closed a deal and invested in TheRollNumber in August.

Speaking on the development, Anirudh A. Damani said,

“The overwhelming response to AVF’s maiden fund is a clear indicator that investor appetite is increasing. We aim to satiate this hunger by expanding our portfolio across the funding spectrum, strengthening our deal flow for follow-on rounds.”

As part of the Artha Access programme, select startups will have an opportunity to secure funding up to Rs 18 crores ($2.5 million) in follow-on rounds from AVF.

Backed by favourable demographics, increasing internet penetration and government support, the Indian Startup Ecosystem has witnessed significant growth in funding. During January-July 2021, Venture capital firms invested a total of $17.2 billion into Indian startups, as per data released by Venture Intelligence (VI) and IVCA.

But as most deal-making occurs in the late-stage funding rounds, early-stage startups are struggling to beat the 2016 peak, as per AVF. That is why Artha Venture Fund came up with Artha Access to provide pre-seed stage founders funds and access to the entire funding spectrum.

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