z21 Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on technology investments, today raised USD 20 million first close for a USD 40 million Fund II from anchor investor WestBridge Capital, a global investment firm.
Fund II quickly follows the announcement of the full deployment of the venture capital firm’s first fund of $5M in June 2024. Building on this success, which empowered 26 mission-driven startups.
Fund II will continue to support disruptive technology companies across various sectors, including artificial intelligence, enterprise software and healthcare. The fund’s primary focus will continue to be pre-seed and seed-stage investments in companies with strong teams, innovative technologies and large market opportunities.
"We are thrilled to announce the first close of our fund II and welcome WestBridge Capital as our anchor investor," said Raj Singh, co-founder and managing partner of z21 Ventures. "This successful fundraise is a validation of our community led model and our track record of identifying and supporting promising early-stage companies. We look forward to supporting entrepreneurs to build and scale purposeful companies by bringing the power of community and capital."
WestBridge Capital's investment underscores its confidence in z21 Ventures' investment strategy and team. "We are excited to partner with z21 Ventures and support their mission of investing in innovative technology companies," said Sumir Chadha, co-founder and managing partner of WestBridge Capital. "z21 Ventures is well-positioned to succeed, and their community-focused and operator-led model can provide valuable support for early-stage founders and help build category-defining companies."
“Our limited partner community helps us with early access to incredible founders and provides founders with deep functional and strategic expertise, strong connections and a supportive ecosystem in their initial journey. We are on a mission to unlock value for founders through a robust ecosystem,” said Jyotika Gupta, partner at z21 Ventures.
With the first close of Fund II, z21 Ventures is well-capitalised for investing in disruptive technology companies and helping them achieve their full potential.
“AI is already disrupting the entire B2B SaaS stack, from infrastructure, data and middleware to apps and agents which will be deployed in almost every organization over the next few years. We’ve seen the era of systems of record (Salesforce and SAP), systems of intelligence (Innovaccer and Palantir), and now we will witness companies emerging as systems of action where multiple workflows at scale will be deployed,” said Sudarshan Ravi Jha, partner at z21 Ventures.
z21 Ventures was founded by Raj Singh (formerly Innovaccer, McKinsey and co-founder IBC) and Abhinav Shashank (Co-founder and CEO, Innovaccer), with Jyotika Gupta (formerly Glassdoor) and Sudarshan Ravi Jha (co-founder of LetsTransport) as partners in the fund. All four are alumni of IIT Kharagpur, bringing a wealth of experience and a shared mission of investing in the future of technology.
