• Kettleborough VC launches Rs 80 Cr Fund II, with first close at Rs 35 Cr backed by India-US investors.
• Focus on inception-stage startups led by founders with deep domain expertise.
• To invest Rs 2.5–4.2 Cr per startup in “Dhandha-first” ventures across fintech, SaaS, and full-stack commerce.

Solo General Partner venture capital fund Kettleborough VC, set up by early-stage investor Nisarg Shah, has launched its second fund with a corpus target of Rs 80 crore, reiterating its focus on investing in experienced founders at the initiation stage of their startups.

The company has reached the first close of Fund II at Rs 35 crore, having raised capital from a diversified set of family offices and Indian and US-based entrepreneurs.

Established in 2021, Kettleborough VC has earned a reputation for its conviction investing ethos, concentrating solely on founders with more than a decade of profound domain experience and operating readiness. Rather than adopting a broad-based model for seed investment, Kettleborough targets what it terms the "last straw moment" when real-world experience, sector insight, and robust network converge into a founder's next fearless step.

"We are strongly disciplined about investing only in execution paths," said Nisarg Shah. "Fund I has proved this thesis with a near 2x return in three years from close. With Fund II, we're doubling down on the thesis."

The new fund will provide initial seed cheques of $300,000 to $500,000 (around Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 4.2 crore), along with substantial follow-on capital for some of its high-performing portfolio companies.

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While sector-agnostic, Fund II will have a bias towards "Dhandha-first" companies commercially oriented businesses with robust fundamentals. Target sectors are:

•Financial services (NBFCs, insurance, fintech infrastructure)

•Full-stack commerce (B2B platforms, consumer brands)

•Vertical SaaS, particularly platforms that are built on agentic AI

12 startups were supported by Fund I, such as Zippmat, InPrime, Finhaat, Elivaas, Sumosave, and Gravity, out of which nine took Kettleborough's initial institutional cheque. Most of these have already raised follow-on capital from industry-leading VC firms like Omnivore, Lightspeed, 3one4 Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Fund I is likely to deploy its corpus during this quarter and has early exit opportunities in the pipeline.

Prior to launching Kettleborough, Shah had invested directly in more than 30 startups, having had 10 exits. He has stayed consistent with his model, which prioritizes high-conviction, low-velocity investing a thoughtful and targeted method that emphasizes founder-market fit and long-term business construction over experimentation.

With Fund II, Kettleborough looks to invest in about 10 high-growth startups that fit within this closely held thesis.