Elev8 Venture Partners, a growth-stage venture capital firm founded by former Kae Capital partner Navin Honagudi, has closed its debut fund at ₹1,400 crore (approx. $160 million). The fund will invest in technology-driven growth companies across three focus sectors of consumer internet, enterprise software, and fintech.
The firm will primarily look to invest in startups with valuations in the $100-$300 million across junk stages. The strategy is to write investment cheques of $10-15 million in each investment with the ability to scale up to $25-30 million through co-investments with limited partners.The fund’s stated objective is to back companies with sustainable business models, strong governance practices, and profitability, while avoiding speculative “binary-risk” categories such as gaming.
Backing from a global investor base
The maiden fund has attracted capital from a diverse set of limited partners, reflecting confidence in Elev8’s thesis. It shows investors, from South Korea, Hong Kong, India, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and several successful unicorn founders. KB Investment, part of South Korea’s KB Financial Group was an anchor investor with almost 20% of the fund size.
India’s Self Reliant India (SRI) Fund, which was set up to boost domestic entrepreneurship and support scalable businesses, also participated. The overall investor mix is split nearly evenly between domestic and overseas backers, which gives Elev8 both global credibility and strong local support.
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Deployment strategy and portfolio so far
Elev8 has already deployed around one-third of the corpus, backing five companies that represent the fund’s core focus areas. These include Astrotalk, an astrology platform rapidly gaining traction; IDfy, a digital identity verification startup; Smallcase, a wealth-tech company that allows retail investors to build curated stock portfolios; Porter, an on-demand logistics services provider; and Snapmint, a consumer finance firm offering buy-now-pay-later solutions.
According to Elev8, its current portfolio companies are growing at over 30% annually while maintaining profitability, evidence of the fund’s preference for companies with proven unit economics and robust business fundamentals. The firm expects to deploy the remaining two-thirds of its fund over the next 12-18 months.
Building discipline into growth capital
Unlike early-stage venture funds, Elev8’s positioning is firmly at the growth stage, where startups have already proven product-market fit and are seeking capital to expand. Honagudi has emphasised that Elev8 is “primaries-first,” meaning it prefers investing fresh capital into businesses rather than buying secondary stakes from existing shareholders.
The fund is also selective about sectors. Within consumer internet, Elev8 is especially focused on premium digital-first brands and marketplaces. In fintech, it prefers infrastructure platforms and technology-led models such as wealth-tech or embedded finance. For enterprise software, the emphasis is on scalable B2B SaaS solutions catering to both Indian and global markets.
Industry context and comparisons
Elev8’s debut fund has closed at a time when India’s venture capital ecosystem is seeing a surge in new fundraising activity, despite the overall slowdown in global startup investment. Several established firms have also announced new pools of capital this year.
In January 2025, Accel closed its eighth fund focused on India, raising $650 million, and remains one of the most active early-stage investors in the country. In March, Bessemer Venture Partners closed a $350 million India fund. Finally, in August, Elevation Capital launched a $400 million late-stage fund for companies planning to go public.
Elev8’s $160 million debut, while smaller in size compared to these veteran firms, is significant because of its sharp focus on growth-stage startups, a category that has struggled to attract large, consistent funding in the past two years.
Why it matters
The successful close of Elev8’s debut fund sends a strong signal to the Indian startup ecosystem. International investors, mostly from South Korea and Hong Kong, exhibit continued conviction in India’s ability to deliver scalable and profitable technology companies. The addition of India’s SRI Fund shows a Government commitment to venture capital as a source of domestic growth.
For founders, Elev8 brings not just capital but also experience in scaling businesses from Series B onwards, an area where many Indian startups face challenges. By prioritising governance, profitability, and long-term value creation, Elev8 aims to support companies that can eventually transition into public markets.
Outlook
Elev8 expects to fully deploy the corpus by mid-2027. The firm estimates it would start to return capital to investors in the timeline after the 2028 period when portfolio companies either IPO or attain meaningful secondary exits. With a disciplined investment strategy and strong institutional backers, Elev8 is working to become an important player in India’s growth stage venture market.
As global markets remain in a wait and see mode, Elev8’s strategy of finding and backing profitable tech driven businesses could provide a blueprint for the next generation of Indian venture capital. Its success will be closely watched not only by startups looking for growth capital, but also from investors evaluating the growth potential of India as one of the best growth capital markets in the world.
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