Elev8 Venture Partners closes maiden growth-stage VC fund at ₹1,400 crore
Backed by KB Investment, Venture Catalysts, and global LPs from Korea, Hong Kong & India
Already invested one-third of corpus in Astrotalk, Smallcase, Porter, IDfy & Snapmint
Growth stage VC firm Elev8 Venture Partners has announced the final close of its maiden fund at ₹1,400 crore. The fund, in an official statement, said it has attracted a diverse base of Limited Partners (LPs), including leading institutions from Korea, Hong Kong, and India; sovereign fund, large family offices, and some unicorn founders.
“The final close of our maiden fund is both a capital milestone and a validation of our belief that India’s next wave of market leaders will be built on profitability, resilience, and scale. Despite a challenging global fundraising environment, Elev8 has secured from institutions, sovereign funds…,” said Navin Honagudi, managing partner at Elev8 Venture Partners.
Founded in 2022 by former Kae Capital partner Navind Honagudi, Elev8 is backed by Venture Catalysts and South Korea’s largest financial conglomerate, KB Investment, as institutional cofounders of the fund. It has already deployed one-third of its corpus into five category-defining companies, including Astrotalk, IDfy, Smallcase, Porter, and Snapmint, with cheque sizes ranging between $8-14 million.
In several of these investments, Elev8 has co-invested alongside its LPs, including family offices and HNIs, further validating the quality of the deals and amplifying Elev8’s cheque size and the overall capital going into its portfolio companies.
The remaining two-thirds of the fund will be deployed over the next 12–18 months into high-growth businesses that align with Elev8’s rigorous investment framework.
All the companies backed by Elev8 are scaling rapidly — growing at more than 30% annually — while remaining profitable, the company claimed. The company's focus is on backing entrepreneurs who are building companies with the resilience to last and the vision to lead.
Honagudi was previously a part of Reliance Venture Asset Management (RVAM), where he led investments in fintech company Paytm. The fintech company, once a rising superstar, went through serious regulatory hurdles from the RBI for persistence non-compliance with KYC norms.
Following this, the central bank asked Paytm to stop several services post-February 29. Since then, a lot happened in the world of Paytm with the fintech company receiving a third party license from the central bank.
