Bengaluru-based venture capital firm Stellaris Venture Partners has now successful closed its latest third fund, raising $300 million. This latest fund, Fund III, aims to support 25 to 30 startups over the next three to four years.
The third fund aims to focus mostly on early-stage investments – particularly in technology-driven sectors – and saw the participation from both returning Limited Partners (LPs) and new backers, including university endowments, pension funds, foundations, and established fund-of-funds. The firm’s previous funds, including a $90 million debut fund and a $225 million second fund in 2021, have already fueled the growth of 44 startups. Approximately 60% of these investments were in businesses at their inception stage as well.
Fund III will aim to drive investments in technology-driven solutions, especially across sectors such as AI, software-as-a-service (SaaS), consumer technology, and fintech. In addition to this, Stellaris also plans to expand its presence in similar sectors such as education, mobility, healthcare, and B2B commerce.
“With this new fund, we’re excited to back founders using technology to solve deep problems in large markets. Our team, consisting of former entrepreneurs and business builders, brings deep expertise and global networks in key sectors like consumer tech, AI, SaaS and financial services to support our portfolio companies throughout their journey,” said Rahul Chowdhri, Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners.
So far, Stellaris – founded by Chowdhri, Ritesh Banglani, Alok Goyal and Rahul Chowdhri (all ex-partners of Helion Ventures) – has built a diverse portfolio of startups across various industries. Prominent investments include consumer brand Mamaearth, which successfully debuted in public markets last year, and SaaS platform Whatfix, which raised $125 million in a Series E round. Other notable ventures include electric vehicle financing company Turno, credit-on-UPI provider Kiwi, and AI-focused SaaS platforms like Orbitshift and CARPL.ai. Other investments include investing in D2C brands Nestasia and Zouk, as well as credit improvement platform Goodscore. The firm also counts the likes of Cisco, Infosys, as well as the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) as its Limited Partners (LPs).
“For the strategy that we’re pursuing, which is seed and Series A in India…with significant follow-on reserves, we feel $300 million is the right size for us. We had significantly more interest but ultimately, we have to return the fund and provide a good IRR (internal rate of return) to our LPs (limited partners, or sponsors of a fund),” Banglani said.
Alongside the launch of Fund III, Stellaris has also revamped its upper management. Naman Lahoty, previously a Principal, has been promoted to Partner, becoming the first non-founding member to hold this position. The firm also appointed Chetan GMS as Chief Financial Officer and Preseedha Premnath as General Counsel, as well as onboarded Vardhan Dharnidharka, an AI/ML engineering expert, as Investment Principal.
