New Delhi, March 5 -- Homegrown venture capital firm Prime Venture Partners, which has backed companies like WheelsEye and MyGate, has unveiled its fifth fund aimed at supporting early-stage startups in India, the firm said on Wednesday.

Fund V has a target corpus of $100 million (Rs 870.5 crore), similar to the fourth fund, which surpassed its target in 2022.

The Bengaluru-based firm has already secured 80% of commitments from global investors, including family offices, university endowments and fund-of-funds from the US, Singapore, Europe, and the Middle East, it said in a statement.

Prime Venture Partners plans to start deploying capital in the second half of 2025, investing in 16-18 companies in sectors like fintech, deeptech, global software-as-a-service (SaaS), and Digital India. Investments will range from $2 million to $4 million per company, which could increase to $12 million over multiple rounds.

Prime Venture Partners is typically the first institutional investor to write a cheque for a startup and intends to maintain the concentrated investment strategy it followed with previous funds.

The growing Indian startup ecosystem, which has seen several tech IPOs recently and the emergence of over 100 unicorns, has sparked strong investor appetite for new-age businesses. This has prompted Prime Venture Partners to further strengthen its presence in India's tech scene through Fund V, the company said. Prime Venture Partners, which was founded in 2012, is led by Amit Somani, Shripati Acharya and Sanjay Swamy. It was renamed Prime Venture Partners from AngelPrime in 2015.

"Fund V will continue on our mission of delivering top-decile results for LPs (limited partners), while helping build India's next generation of global technology leaders," said Shripati Acharya, who is also the co-founder and managing partner of Priven Advisors, the advisory firm to Prime Venture Partners. "Similar to Fund IV, which ended up being oversubscribed, we continue to have inbound interest from institutional LPs," he added.

The firm launched its first fund of $8 million in 2012, based in Mauritius. Fund II closed at $46 million in 2016, and the third fund reached $72 million in 2018. In 2022, Prime closed its fourth fund at $120 million, exceeding its target corpus of $100 million, its largest fund till date.

Since its inception, Prime has backed over 50 early-stage startups, including WheelsEye, MyGate, Quizizz, PlanetSpark, Dozee, and Zuper. It has exited some of its portfolio companies, including Happay, Recko, Perpule and Ezetap, after their acquisitions, and Tracxn after its stock market debut.

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