Kettleborough VC Launches Second Fund with INR 80 Cr Target The firm plans to back about 10 companies, issuing initial seed cheques ranging from USD 300,000 to USD 500,000, with significant reserves allocated for follow-on investments.
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Kettleborough VC, a solo General Partner venture capital firm founded and led by Nisarg Shah, has announced the launch of its second fund with a target corpus of INR 80 crore. The fund has secured INR 35 crore in its first close, with commitments coming from family offices and successful entrepreneurs across India and the United States.
The new fund will continue Kettleborough's strategy of investing early in startups led by seasoned founders. The firm plans to back about 10 companies, issuing initial seed cheques ranging from USD 300,000 to USD 500,000, with significant reserves allocated for follow-on investments. The focus remains on founders who bring over a decade of experience and a strong alignment with the markets they serve.
Nisarg Shah, Founder and General Partner at Kettleborough VC, said, "We are extremely disciplined about backing execution journeys only. We invest in founders for whom the venture is the natural culmination of a decade or more of expertise in a specific domain. That's the last straw moment for us—the final convergence of market familiarity, lived experience, and deep networks."
Founded in 2021, Kettleborough VC has built a reputation for being a high-conviction, construct-specific fund. The firm claims to have invested in over 30 companies, participated in more than 80 follow-on rounds, and achieved over 10 exits. Its debut fund supported 12 companies, including Zippmat, InPrime, Finhaat, Elivaas, and Sumosave. Notably, Kettleborough was the first institutional backer for nine of them.
The fund maintains a sector-agnostic stance, but shows a preference for "Dhandha-first" ventures in financial services, commerce infrastructure, and software platforms. It emphasises founder-market fit, capital efficiency, and execution readiness.
"We are now doubling down with Fund II to back about 10 more such companies," Shah added.
The firm expects to complete Fund I deployment this quarter and is preparing for its first set of exits in the coming months.
