Early-stage venture capital firm Seafund, which is currently raising its second vehicle with a target corpus of INR 250 Cr, has backed five deeptech startups with a total investment of INR 5 Cr.
These five bets include startups RedWings, Docker Vision, Swapp Design, Simatricals and Evhicle.
RedWings designs, develops and deploys fully autonomous drones to transform logistics supply chains and is at the forefront of commercialising these services in India.
Docker Vision utilises computer imaging and AI to streamline the mobility of shipping containers at ports and assess real-time conditions.
Swapp Design has created an interoperable and modular architecture for efficient battery swapping using autonomous robots.
Simatricals specialises in autonomous EV wireless charging solutions, providing high-speed charging through auto alignment for different vehicle classes.
Evhicle produces Vehicle Control Units (VCUs) that offer intelligence to EVs for optimising vehicle dynamics, telemetry, payload monitoring, and facilitating over-the-air updates.
The fund aims to allocate 20% of its investible corpus to clean energy and electric vehicle value chain across sectors such as transportation, logistics and circular economy.
Seafund is a Category 2 alternate investment fund (AIF) registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). It is an early-stage, sector-agnostic technology fund with a focus on deeptech.
The fund supports mission-driven teams developing technologies of tomorrow, offering capital, commitment, network, and experience to their investments. In addition to fintech, enterprise SaaS and healthcare, the fund also concentrates on AI, semiconductors, space, energy, climate and materials.
“We believe that the EV landscape in India is at its nascent stage and the opportunity from clean mobility to EV tech is now beginning to be explored as more investors are understanding the thesis of growth…,” said Manoj Agarwal, managing partner at Seafund.
“As we continue to raise our second fund, we are seeing a huge interest in the Indian EV landscape from the LPs. The wider conversation is that the shift towards cleaner and more sustainable models is no more a choice but a necessity given the fast deterioration in the environment in our cities,” said Narendra Bhandari, general partner at Seafund.
Seafund plans to increase its investment in one or more of these startups as they scale, meet performance milestones and demonstrate growth. This aligns with the fund’s philosophy of deploying over 50% of its corpus in follow-on rounds.
Seafund, with a track record of 16 investments, recently participated in a funding round for Zippee, contributing $1.2 Mn. The venture capital firm has already made three successful exits from companies like GenRobotic, Clootrack, and Wigzo Technologies.
With sustainability emerging as a key focus area for startups and investors, the EV space in the country is rapidly growing and has attracted big investments. Earlier today, EV startup Baaz Bikes announced raising $8 Mn in its Series A funding round. Last month, IPO-bound Ola Electric closed an INR 3,200 Cr funding round, which was a mix of equity and debt.
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