The first close saw participation from domestic and international investors, including new limited partners comprising high-net-worth individuals and family offices, Abhishek Prasad, managing partner at Cornerstone Ventures, told ET.
The second fund will target two types of investments. The first pool focuses on early growth-stage startups, with cheque sizes ranging from $3 million to $7 million. The second pool is earmarked for five late-stage investments, with an average cheque size of $15 million.
The fund plans to invest in around 12 early growth-stage startups, with the intention of doubling down on portfolio winners.
The Mumbai-based firm will invest across software platforms and marketplaces in sectors such as financial services and insurance, retail, consumer goods and ecommerce, distribution and supply chain, and healthcare products and services.
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Cornerstone Ventures has also onboarded Suresh Pareek, founder of pharmaceutical company Ideal Cures, as a general partner.“His (Pareek’s) role would be more about working with founders, taking board seats on behalf of the fund and helping them in their operations and growth,” said Prasad.
Pareek has been investing in startups through his family office, Sukvi Ventures, and is also the cofounder of Elephant Canvas LLP, a digital fine art non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace operating under the brand NewartX.
Cornerstone Ventures was founded by former Reliance Industries corporate venture executives Prasad and Rajiv Vaishnav.
The firm’s first fund, launched in 2018 with a size of $50 million, was deployed across 21 portfolio companies, focusing primarily on B2B enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) business models.
Anchored by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’s Fund of Funds, which is managed by Small Industries Development Bank of India, and Self-Reliant India Fund managed by State Bank of India, the first fund’s portfolio included startups such as fintech startup Credilio, healthcare data analytics company THB and reverse supply chain platform Blubirch.
Further, Cornerstone Ventures has exited two companies from its first fund: retail analytics startup Intelligence Node, acquired by global advertising conglomerate Interpublic Group (IPG), and Wigzo Technologies, acquired by Shiprocket in 2021.
