Grayscale Ventures secures first close of its $20M SaaS-focused pre-seed fund
The maiden fund of Singapore-based Grayscale Ventures has reached its first close, raising nearly half of its $20 million target. The 10-year term fund, established by Siddharth Verma and Nikhil Kapur, intends to invest in 15-20 pre-seed stage firms. It has so far made investments in a small number of businesses, including Localwell, a mobile SaaS company for Indian pharmacy shops, and Olvy, a cloud-based feedback SaaS platform provider.
Before the product-market-fit stage, Grayscale Ventures typically invests in firms that have some form of a product ready. Occasionally, according to Verma, it might even take into account businesses that are still in the pre-product stage.
It has limited partners from all over the world, notably from Southeast Asian nations, the United States, Japan, and India. Founders and operators from companies like Zendesk, Hasura, Slack, GlobalWay, Nexus Venture Partners, and STRIVE make up the majority of the limited partners (LPs).
“In early 2022, we started having conversations with potential LPs. What LPs found interesting was these spaces that are so deep... potentially the next wave of very large companies would come out of these themes,” said Verma, in a conversation with YourStory.
While assisting the Tokyo-based venture capital firm STRIVE in deploying portions of its Fund II and Fund III in India and Southeast Asia, the pair first got to know one another there. They each invested in 25–28 firms focused on business-to-business transactions.
At that point, they made the decision to establish a fund with an emphasis on the Indian SaaS market. "Over time, we gained assurance that the investments we made at STRIVE were successful. In the previous six years, we made between $18 and $20 million in investments. We currently have a 7X MOIC (multiple on invested capital) in India and Southeast Asia, which gave us the assurance we needed to launch our own fund, according to Verma.
Before the product-market-fit stage, Grayscale Ventures typically invests in firms that have some form of a product ready. Occasionally, according to Verma, it might even take into account businesses that are still in the pre-product stage.
It has limited partners from all over the world, notably from Southeast Asian nations, the United States, Japan, and India. Founders and operators from companies like Zendesk, Hasura, Slack, GlobalWay, Nexus Venture Partners, and STRIVE make up the majority of the limited partners (LPs).
“In early 2022, we started having conversations with potential LPs. What LPs found interesting was these spaces that are so deep... potentially the next wave of very large companies would come out of these themes,” said Verma, in a conversation with YourStory.
While assisting the Tokyo-based venture capital firm STRIVE in deploying portions of its Fund II and Fund III in India and Southeast Asia, the pair first got to know one another there. They each invested in 25–28 firms focused on business-to-business transactions.
At that point, they made the decision to establish a fund with an emphasis on the Indian SaaS market. "Over time, we gained assurance that the investments we made at STRIVE were successful. In the previous six years, we made between $18 and $20 million in investments. We currently have a 7X MOIC (multiple on invested capital) in India and Southeast Asia, which gave us the assurance we needed to launch our own fund, according to Verma.
