New Delhi, Oct. 8 -- Theia Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on climate and sustainability, has marked the first close of its maiden fund that is eyeing a corpus of $30 million (Rs 266 crore).

The fund has secured commitments for more than half of its targeted corpus and is expected to mark the final close within the current financial year, the firm said in a statement.

British International Investment (BII), the UK government's development finance institution, is the anchor investor for the vehicle. The VC firm said it has also secured commitments from corporate venture arms, fund-of-funds, and family offices. These include Europe's Allocator One, which backs emerging fund managers globally, Cisco Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Cisco, and Australian firm Vitality Capital Partners, which invests in climate-tech funds across the Asia-Pacific region.

The fund has also received commitments from family offices of Anand Mahindra, Meher Pudumjee of Thermax Group, JM Financial, Vimson Group (Shivanand Salgaocar), and Pramit Jhaveri, former CEO of Citibank India.

The fund will invest in startups developing solutions across energy transition, deep tech, and decarbonization.

"Theia's objective remains clear: to unlock much-needed, early-stage capital towards Indian companies building transformative technologies to disrupt the energy status quo," said Theia Ventures' founder and managing partner Priya Shah.

"Petroleum or coal-based products and processes are now being rapidly replaced by cleaner fuels and energy sources, which presents a huge opportunity for startup innovation and growth, particularly in emerging sectors such as carbon removal, novel materials, data centres, clean mobility, renewable energy and biotech. It's fantastic to see international capital flowing into India to support talented founders building bold solutions that will shape the future," she added.

The firm has begun deploying capital, with recent investments in Sarla Aviation, an Accel-backed electric air taxi company, and Climitra Carbon, a biocoal company catering to the steel industry.

With about 50% of the corpus reserved for follow-on rounds, the fund plans to back 18-20 startups in areas such as heavy industry, manufacturing, materials science, mobility, and supply chains. Theia's cheque size typically ranges from $500,000 to $1 million.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.