- The Fund aims to co-create companies with Serial Entrepreneurs and Domain Experts
- Following a concentrated investment strategy, the Fund will invest in 8-10 ventures in the next 12 months
- Kettleborough VC has invested infive startups in a variety of domains, including Zippmat with Matrix and Zephyr Peacock, Zocket with Kalaari, and Bytelearnwith Leo and Chiratae, and is closing two more transactions with Infoedge and Kae in the coming month.
NE BUSINESS BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, OCT 12
Gujarat-based early-stage venture capital (VC), Kettleborough VC, led by seed investor, Nisarg Shah, on Wednesday announced the launch of its maiden VC Fund. The fund has received capital commitments to the tune of US $5 million from limited partners (LPs) comprising seasoned businesspersons, entrepreneurs as well as startup founders. Keeping founder-market fit as a focus, the fund will invest in technology-centric startups led by Serial Entrepreneurs and Domain Experts.
Kettleborough VC was launched as a solo general partner (GP) fund by Ahmedabad-based investor, Nisarg Shah late in 2021, with a view to invest in promising technology-driven ventures at their seed stages and help shape them, along with their founders. By far, Kettleborough VC has invested in five startups in a variety of domains, including Zippmat with Matrix and Zephyr Peacock, Zocket with Kalaari, and Bytelearnwith Leo and Chiratae, and is closing two more transactions with Infoedge and Kae in the coming month.
The fund plans to invest in 8-10 companies at seed stage over the next 12 months, with a ticket-size of US $150,000 – US $300,000. Additionally, it will also participate significantly in the follow-on rounds of its portfolio companies.
“The founder-market fit approach is critical for us in identifying ventures we want to invest in. Since we deal with early-stage startups, we strive to build independent conviction among founders about their venture and the market at ideation stage itself. Our idea is to bring aboard relevant partners and add value to the early-stage ventures, be it with insights on revenue models to getting upstream investors to enable business partnerships for the companies,” said Nisarg Shah, GP and founder, Kettleborough VC.
Shah comes with extensive experience in the early-stage ecosystem and has remained instrumental in helping several startups chart their 0 to 1 journey. He is a seed investor in companies like Phablecare, Otipy, Homecapital, Onebanc, and Bigspoon, among others.
“The investment approach has been well refined over years across more than 20 companies before the inception of this VC fund. The pre-fund portfolio already has two seed-funded companies at $100 mn+ valuation and we are on track to have two more in the upcoming quarters. The fund vehicle is a natural extension to our work,” Shah further went on to say.
The alternate investment fund has been designed to move fast and does not follow the typical procedures of IC or partner meetings, resulting in faster capital deployment. For its investments, Kettleborough follows a strategy of high conviction and deep concentration.
