Bangalore : Rocketship.vc, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, has raised $125 million, marking the first close of its third fund, and is currently in investment mode, a top executive said.
With the new fund, the VC firm is excited about investing in the Indian startup ecosystem, which has received nearly a third of its total allocation in the past, which is roughly equivalent to its home market.
The latest fund follows its $100 million second fund which was raised in 2019-20. That fund was backed by American investors, including Vulcan Capital, Adams Street Partners and the family offices of Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Rocketship, which has made 20 investments in India so far, has supported startups like NoBroker, Khatabook, Moglix, Apna, Teachmint, Quizizz, Jar and Animal. Its first fund of $40 million was raised in 2015.
Rocketship began with seed and early-stage investments, before moving into Series A and B investments. “One third of our investments are in India, one third in the US and the rest in other countries. Fund II is almost fully deployed and we are currently investing from Fund III,” Rocketship partner Venky Harinarayan said in an interview. There are called ‘growth outliers’ where the flywheel is spinning, and they’re growing faster.”
He said the third fund is likely to have a larger corpus, but declined to elaborate.
From the second fund, it has invested in a little over 20 companies, while the remaining capital will be deployed for follow-on investments in its existing companies.
In India, Rocketship continues to see a huge investment opportunity in the ‘Bharat’ wave, where startups are coming up with apps or services to help people who are traditionally under-served.
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