Gemba Capital invests at seed & pre-seed stage in scalable tech startups led by founders who have an unwavering ambition to build world-class businesses.
Gemba Capital has backed over 120 founders across 50+ startups in Fintech, Consumer tech and B2B Platforms since its inception. Some of the notable portfolio companies are Plum (Insurtech), Grip Invest, Wint Wealth, Strata, Navadhan, Zuper, Showroom, Smartstaff, ClickPost and LightFury.
July 31, 2024, Bengaluru: Gemba Capital, a leading Sebi-registered Micro VC in the country, has announced the launch of its second fund with a corpus of INR 250 crore, including a green shoe option of INR 50 crore.
Fund-II will invest in ~30 early-stage ‘Platform-first’ businesses across 3 focus sectors – Fintech, Consumer tech and B2B Platforms with first cheque of INR 5 Crores and ~30% reserve ratio for making follow-on investments. Digital “Platform-first” businesses are those which can create compounding moats through ecosystem creation, network effects or ability to stack value add layers.
Gemba Capital founded in 2018, is a high conviction, thesis led investor which writes low friction collaborative checks. Its Fund I of INR 70 crore is 2022 vintage with an average cheque size of INR 2 crore. Fund I was raised through investments from Family offices, Founders, and CXOs. Since inception, Gemba Capital has been consistent in their investment strategy of investing only in pre-seed/seed rounds across their focus sectors, investing in less than 10 deals a year and focusing on value addition in the portfolio companies. The firm has developed a proprietary ‘Founder Market Fit Framework’ that assists in identifying the right teams to back.
Commenting on the announcement, Adith Podhar, General Partner, Gemba Capital, said, “Our journey has evolved from investing proprietary capital to running an angel syndicate and then raising and investing from our INR 70 crore Fund-I. We are now looking to partner with institutional LPs for our INR 250 crore Fund-II. The Indian early-stage startup ecosystem needs more institutional capital to be deployed through Single-Stage VC funds like us”, he adds.
“We are one of the leading institutional micro-VC funds in India at the seed stage and we remain committed to being a seed investor. Founders recognize the immense value we bring to the cap-table, which sets us apart. The fund has supported its portfolio companies in multiple areas, including customer introductions, fundraising and strategic planning”, adds Govind Lohia, Principal at Gemba Capital.
Emerging VC fund managers in India must navigate a challenging fundraise environment, but those who implement robust processes and maintain disciplined portfolio construct will always attract capital. Gemba Capital has a solid performance track record with successful exits and up rounds. It is targeting to achieve Final Close of Fund-II by the end of the year.
More about them at www.gembacapital.in
