Venture capital firm Silverneedle Ventures (SNV) has today launched an early-stage tech-focussed VC fund worth $12 Mn (INR 100 Cr). With this, it has also invested in creator monetisation startup Knorish’s Pre-Series A funding round. Andrew Holland, Bharat Serum Family Office, IPV, Mumbai Angels, and Jet Synthesys also participated in the funding round.

SNV will invest between INR 1 Cr and INR 6 Cr in 30 startups in the next 18 months. The fund said that it will support portfolio companies for 3-5 years until it exits them. Set up by Xseed Partners’ founders Ajay Jain and Deepesh Agarwal, SNV aims to invest in Pre-Series A and Series A round of early-stage startups working in diverse sectors including B2B SaaS, deeptech, sustainability, D2C and consumer internet, among others.

“After the success of Xseed Partners, we have set up Silverneedle Ventures with a very strong and diverse team, bringing expertise in core areas of Startup business model. We will assign segment-specific experts across the globe, for the portfolio so that each startup is taken on a growth trajectory,” said, Ajay Jain, cofounder and managing partner at Silverneedle Ventures.

SNV’s team is currently based in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and California. Meanwhile, Knorish was founded by Kinner N Sacchdev and Rakhi Wadhwa. The Gurugram-based startup helps online creators to build and sell online courses, webinars and memberships.

“When the creators set on their monetization journey, their biggest challenge is not content creation or basic setup. The challenge, instead, is building sales funnels, which Knorish aims to solve. We are extremely excited to partner with Silverneedle Ventures and the team is already working harder towards closing our Series A round,” said, Kinner N Sacchdev, cofounder & CEO. Knorish plans to use the fund by entering into new markets, enhancing its tech infra and onboard more creators.

The startup has a headcount of 32 people working in tech, sales, customer success, content designing, and marketing. The VC fund has been launched at a time when the startup ecosystem has slowed down owing to the funding crunch, market inflation, bearish performances of new-age startups in bourses, and geopolitical tensions.

Despite this, a slew of VC funds such as Avataar Venture’s $350 fund, Artha Group’s INR 450 fund and Fundamental VC’s $130 Mn fund have been rolled out showing confidence in the early-stage and growth-stage startups.