Ankur Capital Raises INR 330 Cr Ahead Of Provisional Close Of Fund II The firm continues to invest in pioneering, technology-led disruptive businesses focused on the next billion users

Mumbai-based early-stage venture capital (VC) firm Ankur Capital on Monday announced that they have closed an intermediate round of their Fund II at INR 330 crore with new funding commitments from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), and National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (NABARD).

With this, the firm strengthens its undertaking to back pioneering, deeptech businesses focused on the next billion users.

The fund also previously attracted commitments from other marquee investors like CDC Group, Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF), and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).

"India is in a unique position to build companies for the next billion users (NBU) that are also globally relevant. 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," said Ritu Verma, co-founder and managing partner, Ankur Capital.

With the rapid adoption of new technologies and digitization, emerging markets like India will see more non-English speaking and first-time users migrate online, creating fresh opportunities for more sophisticated and robust tech business models around these next billion users.

"BIRAC is pleased to partner with Ankur Capital under its Fund of Funds scheme - AcE - to support biotech innovations. We look forward to venture funds like AcE Fund Partner - Ankur Capital and encourage private equity mobilization into the biotech innovation ecosystem. This will benefit the rapidly expanding pipeline of biotech startups that develop technology-led innovative products to address unmet needs for India and the world," shared Dr. Manish Diwan, head - strategy partnership and entrepreneurship development, BIRAC.

The firm's core strategy, to invest in entrepreneurs solving real-world problems using innovative technologies for large-scale impact, aligns with this paradigm shift in how markets are being accessed. Building on their expertise, Fund II will continue to see a focus on agtech, healthtech, fintech, edtech, local language technologies, and deeptech solutions.

"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," added Debra Schwartz, managing director - impact investments, 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."

Its Fund I backed 14 startups, including tech innovators such as Cropin, String Bio, Niramai, BigHaat, and Jiny. In addition to providing equity capital, the firm partners with the founders, providing technical assistance, training, and support in strategic planning, executive mentoring, finance, marketing, talent acquisition, and operations. They also recently launched Ankur GRO, an initiative to formalize their capital plus approach.

With Fund II, Ankur Capital aims for entry at the seed stack rounds and targets investments of between $0.5-5 million into each company. They intend to invest in 16-18 companies, having already invested in four companies.