Multiply Ventures Announces its Maiden Fund of Rs. 260 Crore

Multiply Ventures, an early-stage VC fund started by former Myntra, Flipkart, & Paytm Executives, Raveen Sastry, Sanjay Ramakrishnan & Bhushan Patil announces the closure of its maiden fund. A thesis-driven, domestic fund that specializes in investments in consumer tech, has raised Rs. 260 Crore for its maiden fund, a little above the targeted Rs. 250 Crore. The fund focuses on early-stage deals across 4 core sectors – Fintech, Edtech, Retail, and Health.

From L to R – Partners at Multiply – Sanjay, Raveen and Bhushan

The fund, earlier received its SEBI approval to launch the fund in 2020 and the fund completed its final close recently. The 3 Partners built a portfolio of 30 companies as angels before embarking on launching a structured fund. Some of the notable companies in the Pre-fund include Open Financial, DealShare, Gramophone, ShopKirana, Madstreet Den, and Skill Lync.

Sanjay Ramakrishnan, Partner at Multiply said, “We are thesis-driven in our investment and the broad thesis is that -India will see the emergence of trusted brands that will improve access to quality education, transparent financial services, affordable healthcare & authentic retail experiences. Technology will be a unifying catalyst across all sectors. We have a sub-thesis for each of the 4 sectors. The thesis is our governing framework and keeps evolving.”

The majority of the investors are Indian family offices and digital-first entrepreneurs. 95% of the investors are from India. Multiply Ventures has invested in 15 companies to date and plans to invest in 8 to 10 more startups in the next 12 months. Some of the portfolio companies include- Nova Benefits, upswing, Freed, Bharat X in fintech, Nutty Yogi, Iluvia, in sustainable consumer space, Jovian, & clever Harvey in Edtech, & OneCare & Being in Health.

“We are on our path to setting up an operational VC firm, joining hands with Startups as extended partners, which is essential for the Indian ecosystem. While the digital ecosystem has evolved locally, many innovations across sectors will come from early-stage startups which will need support beyond the capital. The right selection, getting in early, and building for larger consumer segments have proven to get the best impact and investment returns for us and we will continue to build on this,” said Bhushan Patil, Partner at Multiply.

“For example, today over the 1 trillion dollar Fintech economy, we are still just scratching the surface. We are witnessing many nascent stage startups across sectors like infrastructure, credit, digitizing BFSI products, building tech-led distribution, identity systems for mass adoption, financial literacy, and inclusion. All these need expertise from the core BFSI domain, global digitization models/methods, how-to’s of building a brand, customer trust, expert views about compliance & regulations, and most importantly awareness of the unit economics to build profitable businesses. We as a team bring these much earlier in the business life cycles of the startups we are bringing under our portfolio

Multiply Ventures will invest very early, and ideally, be the 1st institutional investor, and in most cases lead the round. Our average 1st cheque is 4 Cr and we will invest up to 20 Cr in efficiently run business till series – A. Beyond capital, the Multiply team brings in decades of digital space experience & connects from both domestic and global markets. “My experience of building Myntra, Hoopos & Nudgespot as a Founder, Bhushan’s experience at Paytm, Alibaba, and Yahoo in product, cross-border commerce & fintech, and Sanjay’s experience in consumer marketing across Google, Myntra, Flipkart & Ogilvy is what we bring to the table beyond capital and loads of empathy,” said Raveen Sastry, Partner at Multiply Ventures.

The fund’s vision is to be one of India’s most impactful early-stage VC funds over the next 5 years. If a majority of the good founding teams in the country have Multiply in their consideration set when they raise their seed round, it will be a good start for the fund.

About Multiply Ventures

Multiply Ventures is a SEBI registered AIF in India, operating from Bangalore, the startup hub of India. The fund is thesis-driven & sector-focused and invests in startups focusing on the Indian consumers across -fintech, retail, health, and edtech.

The core tenant is to invest very early and be the 1^st institutional cheque and in the majority of them be the lead investor. Pre-seed/Seed is the focus and the fund will be investing till Series A in companies that are growing efficiently. 

The team brings in a collective experience of over 60 years as operators in consumer tech companies and that is a space the team understands well, so the decision to focus on consumer tech for the maiden fund.