Elevation Capital raises record $670Mn

Early-stage investor Elevation Capital, previously known as SAIF Partners, which has backed unicorns like Swiggy, Paytm, Urban Company and Meesho, has closed its largest ever eighth India-dedicated fund with a corpus of $670 million.

Elevation’s $670 million Fund 8 will allow it to make a larger initial investment and support them in the growth stages as well. Apart from emerging themes such as Web3 and cryptocurrency, the company plans to invest in sectors such as consumer internet, fintech, SaaS.

The company’s Co-Managing Partner Mukul Arora said, “The Indian tech market has now finally hit PMF (product market fit, a pivotal moment for any startup when its product is finally accepted by enough customers and it can now scale). Tech contributes 20% and 35% of GDP in the US and China respectively. In India, there is no published report but my sense is around 1-1.5%. Now you have Web 3.0 and crypto, which is a level playing field for all countries. And given the quality of our talent, I think we have a great opportunity to actually leapfrog everyone else in that space.”

Over the past two decades, Elevation has invested almost $2 billion of capital in over 150 companies across seven funds, with 13 early-stage investments becoming unicorns. Its stakes in Swiggy, Meesho, ShareChat and Urban Company alone are worth over $1.5 billion, almost four times the size of its last fund.

The company’s portfolio has seen six unicorns – start-ups valued at over $1 billion – created in 2021 alone such as social media firm ShareChat and Meesho, home services provider Urban Company, real estate portal NoBroker, and online car-buying app Spinny and Acko Insurance.