India, 8 January 2020: Mantra Capital, a cross-border early-stage venture capital fund that is re-envisioning venture capital to solve humankind’s toughest problems, launches globally today. Three veteran entrepreneurs, Jay Krishnan, Srikanth Chintalapati and Kevin Jacobs are launching the fund. It is a USD 60M US-based fund and will focus on Deep Tech for human good. The fund has already raised USD 24M out of USD 60M.
Mantra Capital has started scouting for startups in India and international markets like the U.S. to make its initial investments. It is focused on investing in seed and pre-Series A round startups with advanced solutions for human good in three specific themes: ‘What we eat’, ‘Where we live’ and ‘How we thrive.’ The sectors in focus are food and agritech, circular economy and healthtech, among others. Startups with products and solutions that use advanced science and leading-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, photonics and robotics will attract the company’s funds.
The fund is smartly designed for the scaling up of startups through its strategic partnerships with investors, global network, industry experience and market expertise. Mantra Capital’s proposition of capital and venture building with offshore services will be the highlight for startups to scale up and go to market rapidly.
Jay will be heading the deal flow in India, handling product management and business development for the portfolio startups and bringing in global partnerships. Srikanth will be responsible for supporting Indian portfolio startups in product development as well as scaling their operations and distribution in India. Kevin will be handling the U.S deal flow, assessing the target startups, as well as managing exits or merger and acquisitions (M&A) of the portfolio companies.
Jay Krishnan, Partner at Mantra Capital, said, “We see the need to re-envision a new playbook for venture capital. We have leveraged the existing best practices to assist entrepreneurs. Mantra Capital’s fund will focus on scaling innovative solutions that have rapid acceleration potential and can solve problems locally with a massive global impact. We are uniquely positioned to execute this game plan and maximise returns to our investors.”
Srikanth Chintalapati, Partner at Mantra Capital, said, “Our target is to close our first fund by the end of 2020. Mantra Capital will be keen to invest in startups in sectors like foodtech and agritech that use technologies and processes that significantly impact humankind and are operationally intensive. So far, there have been very few innovations in the agriculture space, which forms the biggest chunk of the market. But we are seeing an influx of good quality startups that are creating solutions. It presents a fruitful opportunity for the investor community.”
Kevin Jacobs, Partner at Mantra Capital, said, “We have a deep engagement model and strong entrepreneurial, operating and domain experience to function as an interim management team. We aim to understand the product and the service of our portfolio companies and its customer requirement. It will enable us to add value to them.”
Mantra Capital will provide offshore venture services and managed services to global startups. Also, venture services will scout and curate U.S and Indian startups for corporate innovation scaling programs that will be launched in the second quarter of 2020. Mantra Capital will be partnering with global corporates and global accelerators that will help startups’ Go-To-Market (GTM.) Managed services will help startups scale by providing help in design, marketing, manufacturing, channel creation, GTM and M&A through Mantra Capital’s managed services partner platform. It will also help startups in securing equity and cash-based strategic tie-ups.
About Mantra Capital:
Mantra Capital is a U.S. based cross-border venture capital fund founded by a team of entrepreneurs with a rich experience that spans nurturing, scaling and M&A of early-stage startups. The fund will back technology-powered startups working for human good with interests spanning agritech, food, sustainability, circular economy and healthcare sectors to address potential markets in India, as well as globally. Mantra Capital’s experience, networks, mentoring and resources across the globe will help scale the startups towards series A faster.
