Early stage venture capital firm Axilor Ventures has announced the launch of its second fund Axilor Technology Fund – II with a total corpus of $100 million (Rs 700 crore), almost four times the size of its maiden fund of Rs 200 crore that was launched in 2018.

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Backed by family offices of Infosys co-founders Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal, professor Tarun Khanna of Harvard Business School, and IT industry veterans Srinath Batni and Ganapathy Venugopal, the VC firm said it will continue to focus on emerging opportunities in enterprise SaaS, B2B commerce, agritech, consumer tech and healthtech, with a renewed focus on the fintech sector.

With cheque sizes upto $750,000, ATF-II has also set aside 30 percent of its corpus to back 10-12 winners from its first fund. The new fund will have a longer tenure allowing it to stay longer in companies and has a higher follow-on reserve, a statement said.

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Axilor’s Fund I has invested in 54 startups, of which 77 percent of the startups have already raised their Series A and beyond. This makes Axilor one of the largest first funds to mint Series A+ companies from its portfolio, as per the company. The fund’s portfolio includes the likes of Detect, Enkash, Headfone, Loco, Urban Piper, Vyapar and Wiz, among others.

“There is no better time to invest in innovation coming out of India. We are excited to partner with entrepreneurs through our new fund. We have built a well-respected brand among founders and VCs. With our first fund, we have demonstrated our deep engagement model and a programmatic approach that predictably delivers better outcomes for startups. We hope to extend the same commitment and disciplined approach into our next fund to help entrepreneurs build valuable companies,” said Ganapathy Venugopal, Co-founder and CEO, ATF-II.

Axilor Ventures competes with the likes of Seqouia’s Surge and Leo Capital. Despite a looming funding winter, the early-stage funding environment in India continues to be vibrant. Seed and Series A investments were up by 88 percent and 22 percent respectively in Q4FY22, according to a report by Venture Intelligence.

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