Nikhil Kapur (left) and Siddharth Verma
Nikhil Kapur and Siddharth Verma, who were previously part of Japanese early-stage venture firm STRIVE, have announced the formation of Grayscale Ventures.
The new fund is focused on SaaS and DevInfra companies in Southeast Asia and India. The team plans to focus primarily on the following themes:
DevInfra
In a statement, the firm said that with India being the second largest developer base in the world, it will soon to overtake the US. “Developers in India have built infrastructure for scaled-up products used by more than 100 million users, making it a unique skillset globally. Using these capabilities they are now building the next generation of infra companies focussed on other developers.”
AI applications
“In the past, SaaS systems were either systems of record or systems of engagement such as Salesforce or Slack respectively. The next generation of SaaS systems will be systems of intelligence and this is where we’ll invest our capital,” the company stated, commenting on the rising popularity of AI.
Vertical SaaS
With this sector, Grayscale Ventures aims to seize opportunities provided by the pandemic, when SMEs became more open to tech adoption and digitalisation.
The 10-year term fund plans to invest in 15 to 20 startups at their Pre-seed stage, essentially the first cheque into the company.
With a cheque size of US$200,000 to US$1 million, Grayscale Ventures targets around 10 per cent ownership in these companies, preferring to lead the rounds wherever possible or co-leading with other specialised funds. The team looks for founding teams that are product-led with strong developer capabilities.
Most of the LPs are operators and founders of companies such as Slack, Zendesk, Hasura, GlobalWay, Nexus, STRIVE, and Apollo Munich UOB.
“We come from Dev and Product backgrounds, so we tend to understand what technical founders are building better than most generalist investors. Our portfolio founders find value in working with us as we support them in figuring out their product-market-fit and opening up market access in the US and APAC. Our LPs are operators and founders from tech companies globally, and we leverage their support for our portfolio’s growth,” the company stated.
Grayscale has already invested in a few SaaS companies including Olvy, a product feedback lifecycle management SaaS, and Localwell, mobile SaaS for Indian pharma retailers.
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Image Credit: Grayscale
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