AdvantEdge Founders, an early stage consumer technology venture capital fund today announced the launch of AdvantEdge Founders Fund II – a Mobility First Transformation Fund based in India. The fund is poised to target the massive mobility opportunities available in the Indian Start-up ecosystem with the aim of creating future “Indicorns” or thousand crore rupee companies.
AdvantEdge Founders Fund II has already received commitments of Rs 100 crore from its existing Fund I anchor Limited Partners (LPs) and is on track to secure additional commitments of Rs.200 crore. The Mobility First Transformation Fund will focus on investing in early stage start-ups across the shared mobility, smart cars, digital auto and logistics domain. The fund will invest in companies early in their journey and work closely with compelling founders and management teams to deliver superior risk adjusted returns.
“We spent three years in deploying Fund I across the consumer tech space with a focus on shared mobility. We recognized key mobility trends very early, identified the right opportunities including Shuttl, Rapido and Chalo and worked closely with the founding teams to achieve leadership positions,” said Kunal Khattar, Managing Partner, AdvantEdge Founders. “We are looking to bring on board leading players in the auto mobility ecosystem including OEMs, component manufacturers, mobility solution providers and aftermarket auto distributors as LP’s in this sector focussed fund. We promise them key insights into technologies and start-ups disrupting their domain and first mover access to strategic M&A opportunities at the corporate level” he added.
New business models driven by shared mobility, connectivity, electrification and smart solutions including autonomous technologies could expand new mobility solutions 50x into a USD 1.5 trillion market by 2030.
“I have been very impressed with the AdvantEdge team and their ability to identify opportunities early and make them winners,” said Laksh Vaaman Sehgal, Vice Chairman of Samvardhana Motherson Group, an anchor LP in both Fund I and II. “Motherson has gained tremendous insights into the shared mobility space by working with many of the portfolio companies and I am now looking for disruptive technologies in the smart and connected car space which can be potential areas for us to collaborate on to give the Group a competitive advantage in our areas of operations.”
The fund supports its portfolio companies by leveraging the strong domain knowledge of its all-entrepreneur team. Their unique approach of mentor building, strong advisory board and marquee LP’s give them a competitive advantage in deal flow, due diligence and validation to help build best in class companies. Fund I has an impeccable investment track record with its Mobility portfolio delivering a Gross IRR of 84%. AdvantEdge will duplicate its successful strategy from the earlier fund into Fund II by expanding the mobility space to include technology opportunities in smart, electric and autonomous cars, aftermarket parts and services, auto eCommerce and logistics, warehousing, transportation and distribution.