By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media
Mumbai-based early stage impact investor Ankur Capital announced a close on an intermediate round of funding for their Fund II at 330 crore (US$49.6 million). Ankur announced a first close on Fund II in January 2020 at 240 crore (US$36 million).
As a pioneer in India’s agtech investment space, Ankur Capital’s investment thesis of backing innovative technologies in emerging markets and capitalizing upon the transformative opportunities that arise through greater digital access has attracted new investors through this round, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), and National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (NABARD).
These new partners join Fund II’s existing investors CDC Group, Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF), and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).
“We are excited to support Ankur Capital as one of a select group of major investments that advance the goals of the global Catalytic Capital Consortium initiative,” said Debra Schwartz, managing director, Impact Investments at the MacArthur Foundation. “A powerful example of catalytic capital, Ankur’s focus on transformative technology has the potential to improve economic opportunity for low-income individuals across India.”
Founded in 2014 by Ritu Verma, an alum of Penn/INSEAD, and Rema Subramanian, the former COO of Zee e-learning, Ankur Capital historically makes pre-Series A and Series A investments across the agtech, healthtech, fintech, edtech, local language tech, and deeptech solutions.
Aligning and acknowledging the paradigm shift in how markets are being accessed, Ankur Capital’s core strategy is to invest in entrepreneurs solving real-word problems through innovative tech business models aiming to achieve large-scale impact, and targeting the next billion users.
Its maiden fund closed at Rs 50 cr (US$7.5 million) and invested in 14 startups that successfully reflect Ankur’s differentiated thesis including SaaS solution developer CropIn; String Bio, a producer of alternative protein from methane; and BigHaat, an e-commerce supply chain platform.
“India is in a unique position to build companies for the next billion users (NBU) that are also globally relevant,” said Ritu Verma, co-founder and managing partner, Ankur Capital. “We are witnessing a distinct set of companies that are using India’s large and diverse markets to test products before launching abroad. As with Fund I, we are happy to accelerate this trend with Fund II.”
Once capital is committed, Ankur Capital doesn’t stop there. The firm has recently launched Ankur GRO – an initiative to formalize their Capital Plus approach of partnering with company founders, providing technical assistance as well as support in training, strategic planning, executive mentoring, finance, marketing, talent acquisition, and operations.
Support such as this is all the more valuable as the rapid adoption of new technologies and higher levels of digitization in emerging markets like India will result in the engagement of more non-English speakers and first-time online users, noted Ankur in a release provided to GAI News.
Already invested in four companies, Ankur intends for Fund II to enter at the Seed stage, targeting each of its investments between US$500,000 – US$5 million across 16-18 total companies.
“BIRAC is pleased to partner with Ankur Capital under its Fund of Funds scheme – AcE – to support biotech innovations,” said Dr. Manish Diwan, head – Strategy Partnership & Entrepreneurship Development, BIRAC. “We look forward to venture funds like AcE Fund Partner – Ankur Capital and encourage private equity mobilisation into the biotech innovation ecosystem. This will benefit the rapidly expanding pipeline of biotech startups who develop technology led innovative products to address unmet needs for India and the world.”
– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and Agtech Intel News, and HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She is also a contributor to the GAI Gazette. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com
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