Early-Stage Focused VC Firm YourNest Closes Continuation Fund At ₹400 Cr

Early-stage deeptech focused VC firm YourNest Venture Capital has closed its continuation vehicle (CV), the YourNest Continuum Fund I, with a corpus of ₹400 Cr.

The VC firm said that the fund closed with an oversubscription with several marquee family offices and individual investors alongside a significant number of YourNest’s existing investors rolling over their stake into the fund.

The fund will allow it to provide follow-on investments for some of its top performing portfolio companies, including Miko, Dozee, Thriwe, Opkey, Twid, and Exponent Energy. The fund is being anchored by HDFC AMC Select Fund of Funds I.

With the ₹400 Cr corpus, YourNest Continuum Fund I is being positioned as a specialised secondaries vehicle to transition mature, high-potential assets nearing the end of traditional fixed-term fund lifecycles into an extended patient-capital framework.

Besides, it will also help YourNest VC provide an immediate liquidity pathway to existing Limited Partners (LPs) and eliminate the pressure to force asset liquidations or fire sales.

“By securing HDFC AMC Select FOF I as the incoming anchor, the underlying portfolio is subjected to a rigorous, transparent, and completely independent institutional pricing process,” the VC firm said.

Founded in 2011 by Sunil Goyal, Sanjay Pande and Girish Shivani, YourNest places bets on early-stage deeptech startups operating in segments like AI, healthcare technology, enterprise software, mobility and consumer technology.

Over the years, the VC has launched three funds, backed 51 companies (over 35 in deeptech), and has taken 10 exits at an average of at least 5X to 6X return.

It invested in 16 companies from $14 Mn Fund I, a few of which, including Uniphore and ARYA.AI, were deeptech companies. Its $30 Mn Fund II backed 18 deeptech startups across sectors such as CRON AI, Exponent Energy, Orbo, LightSpeed Photonics, Uptime AI, among others. YourNest’s $69 Mn Fund III has deployed almost 70% of the total corpus so far in 17 companies.

The VC typically invests in startups raising pre-Series A rounds, which allows it to invest in follow-on rounds with bigger cheques.

For context, continuation funds aid LPs to either pull out their investments or roll them over to the follow-on fund. AIFs typically have an 8-10 year lifespan, forcing general partners to find exits regardless of the asset’s performance.

This is especially important for deeptech investments that typically have a longer gestation period and require multiple rounds of investments before attaining maturity.

In India, this period typically ranges between 10-15 years due to the deep R&D required before products can be launched and commercialised. This had recently prompted the central government to increase the time period for a deeptech startup to be recognised as such to 20 years, from 10 years earlier, to ensure they keep receiving support extended to early-stage ventures.

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