Merak is co-founded by former GrowX Ventures partners Manu Rikhye and Sheetal Bahl. The duo invested in early-stage companies at GrowX, which focuses on deep-tech companies.
They still manage 16 GrowX portfolio companies including Progcap and Cynlr.
Merak’s $100 million fund comes amid a so-called funding winter, in which investors are reluctant to inject large amounts of capital into start-ups, particularly those in the mid-and late-stage stages.
Additionally, companies are taking drastic measures, including layoffs, to get back on the path to profitability.
According to data compiled by Fintrackr, nearly 90 start-up investment firms, including 63 venture capital firms, eight private equity firms, and four lending firms, have formed or have been formed in the final tranche to announce their new fund from July 2022.
Earlier this month, debt venture firm Stride Ventures announced the closing of the $200 million Stride Ventures India Fund II. The fund was closed for the first time in August 2021.
It is also looking good for growth, as well as for early-stage start-ups.
Fundamentum Partnership recently raised $227 million for its second fund to invest $25-40 million in startups seeking growth.
In June, Fundamental VC, an early-stage fund based in Bangalore, launched its first fund with a target of $130 million.
Merak Ventures is raising its first fund targeting $100 million, industry-agnostic venture capital firm (VC) founders Manu Rikhye and Sheetal Bahl said in an interview.
The Merak plans to invest in 18-20 start-ups over the next 3-4 years.
We have passionate founders who want to solve real problems. We want to empower them as his partner in mentoring as well as funding.
We firmly believe that companies that solve real problems are always sound investments,” said Rikhye, his partner at Merak.
Merak hopes to close its first fund by the end of the year. “We hope to collect a quarter to a third of the corpus at the first finish.
The first group of investors at the first closing will be existing investors, followed by global and domestic institutional We approach home,” said Rikhye, adding that climate technology is a key investment theme the fund is focusing on.
