Kettleborough VC, a venture capital firm founded and led by investor Nisarg Shah, has launched Fund II with a target corpus of ₹80 crore and secured a first close at ₹35 crore with commitments from family offices and entrepreneurs from India and the US.
With this new fund, Kettleborough will continue to invest in deeply experienced founders at the earliest stages, typically those with over 10 years of domain expertise and a strong execution focus. Kettleborough plans to make around 10 investments, writing initial cheques of $300,000 to $500,000, with substantial reserves set aside for follow-on rounds.
Nisarg Shah, Founder and General Partner at Kettleborough VC, said, “We are extremely disciplined about backing execution journeys only, wherein we invest only in founders for whom the venture is the natural culmination of a decade or more of expertise in a specific domain. That’s the last straw moment for us — the final convergence of market familiarity, lived experience, and deep networks.”
“Fund I has shown a clear PMF for this thesis — tracking nearly 2x in just about 3 years from the final close — and we are now doubling down with Fund II to back about 10 more such companies,” he said.
Founded in 2021, Kettleborough VC has built a reputation for being a high-conviction, construct-specific fund. The firm claims to have invested in over 30 companies, participated in more than 80 follow-on rounds, and achieved over 10 exits.
Its debut fund supported 12 companies, including Zippmat, InPrime, Finhaat, Elivaas, and Sumosave. Notably, Kettleborough was the first institutional backer for nine of them.
Among the portfolio, several companies have raised strong follow-on rounds from marquee institutional investors like Z47, Omnivore, Lightspeed, 3one4, Bessemer and others.
