Stellaris Venture Partners raises Rs 1,675 cr second fund

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], August 11 : Early-stage venture capital firm Stellaris Venture Partners on Wednesday announced the closing of its second fund at 225 million dollars (about Rs 1,675 crore).
In addition to strong support from existing Limited Partners, the fund saw participation from several new global institutions. Global institutional capital forms more than 80 per cent of the capital base of the second fund.
The fund did a first close in April and was fully subscribed within 45 days. With this fund, Stellaris Venture Partners now has more than 300 million dollars (about Rs 2,231 crore) in assets under management.
Stellaris invested in 19 startups after raising its maiden fund in 2017 of which several have emerged as market leaders in their categories.
From the new fund, Stellaris expects to make 25 to 30 new investments in seed and series A rounds of technology companies.
"India's venture ecosystem has come of age over the last few years with large exits and a massive increase in the volume and quality of new startups," said Rahul Chowdhri, Partner at Stellaris.
"The larger second fund gives us dry powder to tap into this growing opportunity with an ability to back entrepreneurs with more capital and support them for longer. We keep a large reserve for our best-performing portfolio companies and back them through three to four funding rounds."
Stellaris has started investing capital from the second fund with commitments to four startups so far. The firm most recently invested in D2C lifestyle brand Zouk.
The early-stage venture capital firm invests in tech and tech-enabled consumer and enterprise startups in India. Since its inception in 2017, Stellaris has backed many market leaders such as Mamaearth, Whatfix, mFine, Slintel and Propelld.