Nexus Venture raises $700 Mn Fund VIII to back Indian and US startups

Nexus Venture Partners has raised its eighth fund, a $700 million vehicle aimed at early stage bets in artificial intelligence, enterprise software, consumer, and fintech firms across India and the US.

The VC firm had previously raised $700 million in 2023.

According to Nexus, it plans to deploy capital in US only ventures alongside its longstanding strategy of backing cross border Indian software companies.

The fund is currently led by general partners Abhishek Sharma and Jishnu Bhattacharjee in the US, and Anup Gupta and Sujan in India.

Nexus states that it has returned about $700 million in cash through partial and full exits over the past few years and has generated total liquidity of $1.5 to $2 billion since inception. The exits include Delhivery, PubMatic, Cloud dot com, Mezi, and Gluster. It has also backed companies such as Turtlemint, Zepto, Rapido, Postman, and Apollo, where it holds about 13 to 14% as an early backer.

Nexus GP Sujan said that the firm will have equal focus on the US and India. If a fund backs 30 companies, 15 will be in each strategy, digital India and global software. He further added that if the fund gets one to two global enterprise AI winners and one or two digital India winners, that is enough to return multiple times the fund.

According to Nexus, its next phase will be shaped by operationally intensive businesses like Rapido, Zepto, and Snabbit, and it is looking for innovative opportunities in wealth, payments, and lending.