Sanjeev Aggarwal and Ashish Kumar's Fundamentum's raises second fund of $227million

The flurry of private market investments over the last two years that led to a mismatch in valuations of high-growth technology companies compelled Nandan Nilekani's Fundamentum Partnership to stay away from any new investment in 2021 as the firm couldn't find companies where it thought it would be able to generate returns, according to top officials at the venture capital (VC) firm.

In 2021, the deal velocity was significantly higher and the time taken for due diligence was 'far shorter,' which led to the VC going slow on its investments, said Ashish Kumar and Sanjeev Aggarwal, co-founders and general partners at Fundamentum Partnership.

Fundamentum recently raised its second fund of $227 million to invest in growth-stage and early-stage startups in India and according to Aggarwal and Kumar, the company plans to deploy the entire fund in about 36-40 months or three-and-a-half years as compared to its first fund of $100 million which was deployed in a little over four-and-a-half years. This time it also plans to invest in around 12 start-ups, double what it had invested from the first fund.

Some of its current portfolio start-ups include Pharmeasy, Spinny, FarEye, RailYatri, Probo to name a few. The two officials also outlined their game plan for the new fund, the sectors that they are bullish on and how Fundamentum looks at growth-stage funding in India