We are a team of operators who have lived
and breathed building businesses
We roll up our sleeves, get down in trenches with the founders and are the first port of call whenever they run into difficult scenarios in business, people, markets and get them back on track for growth.
Our mission is, to help the next set of technical founders, with early Venture Capital to build highly scalable and efficient Global Businesses.
- Why seafund?
- What are we looking for?
- Our Process
- Stage and check sizes
What is singular to Seafund?
Our founders have experienced that we are more than just a check. We have worked with our portfolio ranging from helping with a go to market strategy to founder conflict to plowing money when none else was available; even convincing bigger funds sitting on the cap table to back the founder when they were earlier in favor of curbing fund infusion.
Early stage and Seafund
We work deeply with founders to help them build a product, think through their GTMs and on occasions even frame one and are hands-on with their key operational issues. At the stage that we come in, founders don’t need investors who are well versed with financial engineering or have been with marquee consulting firms. They need help from folks who have operated businesses and our team brings that in spades.
Early stage with some product-market fit
We invest in early-stage companies, preferably with some semblance of a product market fit at the intersection of network effects, technology and innovative business models by leveraging platforms, protocols, and the power of modularity.
Returning founders with non-obvious market opportunities
We believe returning founders who have learned the rules of the startup game in their first stint, whether it be a success or a failure, have had their trial by fire and are in it for the right reasons, having learnt key lessons that will enable them to crash timelines to scale businesses. The question you need to answer is whether you have discovered a nonobvious market opportunity where you have a unique advantage or approach, and one that competing players won’t see until you’ve had a chance to build a healthy lead.
Solutions that give back people's time
One of the things we are looking for is solutions that give people back the most precious thing they have in their lives, which is their time. If you give people their time back, they will love you forever and keep coming back for more.
India for India play that can be scaled globally
We value an India for India play, which can then subsequently be scaled to, first, similar markets and subsequently globally. SaaS, Deeptech, Healthcare, Fintech, Agritech, Mediatech, Hardware/Embedded Systems are some of the industries that we have invested in or will in the future – where machine learning and deep technology are deployed to build startups that operate in the enterprise and consumer space.
Seafund’s view on sectors
We are stage-focused and sector agnostic. Themes and trends are traps for entrepreneurs and investors. Sometimes, themes are predictive and useful. We don’t believe that we have all the answers – in fact founders teach us more than what we have learnt so far. Doing the upfront work to have a thesis before investing in a sector is important, and we do that, but it only acts as a guardrail for us.
Rationale for our investment areas
There are 15- 20 companies that are produced each year that matter. The odds that those big ideas are going to occur in the same sector over and over again is very, very low. So, by definition, we chose to be agnostic. Nothing is off-limits for us. Nothing really scares us. And the world’s changing so quickly that we think you need to have that mindset to catch the next big thing.
Fund metrics
We make between 15-20 investments per fund and we expect, hope, and work hard to make sure that 3-4 of those investments turn into high impact companies that can each return the fund.
Stage and check sizes
Our entry point is typically Seed or pre- Series A with a check size of upto $750,000. We continue to invest in subsequent rounds to protect our ownership and expect to deploy $2 – $4M overall in some of our outperformers. Like with the first fund, we expect to deploy upwards of 50% of the corpus as follow-ons.
Our Team
It’s well-known that the most brilliant and imaginative minds look for the most complex
- Core Team
- Advisory Board
- Mentors
Mayuresh Raut
Co-Founder & Managing Partner
25+ years in Data Science, Investments, Technology and Startups in GE, IBM & Novozymes. Studied Material Science & Engg & Finance and is an alum of INSEAD & Virginia Tech
Saas
Deeptech
Climate
Healthcare
Manoj Kumar Agarwal
Co-Founder & Managing Partner
25+ years in Finance, Technology, Investments and Startups in Karuturi, Pursuit & Consulting. Studied Computer Science & Finance & is an alum of INSEAD & BMS, Bengaluru
Fintech
SaaS
Agritech
IoT
Narendra Bhandari
General Partner
25+ years in Technology, SaaS, Investments and Startups in Intel, Microsoft, Persistent & Soroco. Studied Computer Science and is an alum of Arizona State & RVCE, Bengaluru
Deeptech
B2B
Enterprise IT
Defence
Agam Gupta
Principal
5+ years in Technology, Investments and Startups in Deloitte. Studied Computer Science & is an alum of Northwestern University
Mobility
Consume
Web 3.0
Fintech
Harkesh Mittal
Chairman, Startup India Seed Fund Committee
Seasoned technocrat instrumental in pivotal roles in the Indian startup ecosystem
Former Program Head of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Technology Commercialization at Department of Science & Technology, Government of India
Former Head of National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB)
Srinivas Katta
Partner Indus Law and Founder, Rule Zero
Represents Entrepreneurs, Businesses and Funds in fund raising, investments, acquisitions, exits, corporate governance issues and JVs
Recognised in The Mint as one of the 40 who matter in the start-up ecosystem
Named in India Business Law Journal's A-List of top 100 lawyers
Jay Pillai
Co-Founder & CEO, Alp
Consulting
Co-founded Alp consulting - a well-known HR Consulting & Staffing company, currently majority owned by a Tokyo listed Japanese company
Founder Clean Pro, a cleaning & house-keeping company
Member – Entrepreneur’s Organisation (EO)
S Viswanathan
Former Compliance Head, ING Vysya Bank
Senior Banking Professional with 40+ years of experience in Private Banking, Stressed Assets, Compliance
Independent Director, Principal Trustee Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), Nominee Director for a large Institution
Advising Fintech Startups, Funds & MFIs for investments and regulatory compliance
Ashvanni Srivastava
Entrepreneur & Business Leader
35 + years in corporate and entrepreneurial assignments across India, SE Asia, US & UK doing innovation in Digital healthcare, Hospitals, HCIT, Medical Devices, AI & Analytics
Ex-President of Strategic Initiatives and Board Director across multiple business units for strategy and execution at Apollo Hospitals Group, US$7.5bn. healthcare Enterprise
Founder & CEO of HealthHiway, Asia’s first Health Information network of 1200+ Hospitals, 20,000 Doctor Practices and Insurance
Ramanathan V
Startup Ecosystem Builder
Over 30 years of operational and strategic leadership roles across high tech capital medical equipment, innovative medical devices, commoditized medical consumables, competitive pharma products and disruptive diagnostic services across diverse medical specialties
Healthcare Mentor of Society for Innovation and Development - IISc Bangalore, for their deep tech healthcare portfolio
Member- Selection, Investment Committee and Programs - DERBI Foundation. Anchor Mentor of NSRCEL - IIMB health incubation program
Shihab Muhammed
Founder, CEO SurveySparrow
Seasoned SaaS Entrepreneur and Operator. Was the Co-Founder and a Business Unit Head at Freshservice part of the initial team at Freshdesk and ex Zoho
Has been part of founding teams, is a Growth Leader, has built and scaled multi-million-dollar SaaS products. Passionate about building user friendly SaaS Products
Currently building out SurveySparrow, an Omnichannel Experience Management Platform
P K Gopalakrishnan
Investor, Mentor & Co-founder Malabar Angel network
Experienced corporate leader with over three decades of all-round experience in Strategy, P&L and business management. Ex CEO & MD of WeP Solutions, a listed BSE company
Senior Executive at Mindtree and Wipro Infotech for over two decades
Currently an active member of a few angel networks & mentor/advisor to many startups in Bangalore and Kerala. Co-founder of Malabar Angel Network and Mizone- start up incubator in Kannur, Kerala
Disclaimer
Seafund Venture India Trust (“Seafund”) is an alternative investment fund for sophisticated investors, registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”). Salamander Advisors LLP, a limited liability partnership registered with the Registrar of Companies is the Investment Manager for Seafund.
Seafund operates exclusively out of its offices in Bengaluru and Delhi, India. Seafund does not have any agency, association, collaboration, relationship or solicitation partnership with any company, individual, body corporate or entity and operates independently and solely under its own name. No such company, individual, body corporate or entity has at any time been authorized to represent Seafund or its interests, nor represent itself/himself as being associated with Seafund in any manner, vis-a-vis any third party.
In case of further enquiries regarding Seafund’s business, please feel free to contact us at [email protected].