a99 to launch $100 Mn fund to back manufacturing and infra startups

Early stage focused VC firm a99 (formerly Artha99) is set to raise its third fund with a target corpus of $100 million (about Rs 870 crore).

With this fund, the firm intends to back 12-15 startups operating in the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors with a check size in the range of $5 million to $10 million. 

According to a99, it will focus on startups in the Pre-Series A to Series B stages. It has also received soft commitments of $30 Mn from existing and new investors. The VC firm is aspiring to announce the first close of the fund by April 2026, with no green shoe option.

Launched  in 2021 by Vignesh Shankar, the Chennai-based firm launched Fund II in 2022, which had an initial target corpus of Rs 50 crore. It later exercised a greenshoe option, which increased the total corpus to Rs 105 crore. 

With its Fund II, the VC firm has invested in Aditya Avartan, Intangles, Innocule, EzerX, Lyzr.ai, and Raptee, to name a few. From Fund I, a99 invested in Vajro, Intents Mobi and Sarva. 

a99 has made one exit from its Fund I portfolio—Helsinki-based application development software provider, Futurice UK, which is a subsidiary of Futurice Finland. The firm had acquired a99’s shares which saw the VC firm cash in 7X returns.