Entrepreneurs who have risen from the bottom and personally confronted the challenges within the business realm are the ones best equipped to assist the next generation of founders in surmounting the hurdles they are bound to encounter. This is the thesis strongly encouraged and followed by the leadership team at Garuda which intends to utilize their network of top-tier founders and operators across all business functions, and hard-earned learnings to support founders. With this goal in mind, Garuda Ventures has announced the launch of their $31 million Debut Institutional Fund.
With a focus on pre-seed and seed-stage startups; Garuda Ventures wants to join every founder as the first institutional investor with up to a $1 million initial investment. Their primary goal is to support exceptional founders and help them build world-class products, teams, and companies.
The fund is committed to B2B software companies and focuses on four core themes: Intelligent Applications; Commerce Infrastructure; The New Perimeter; and Climate 2.0. Previously, Garuda had invested time in building and scaling in these specific categories; notably with leading software companies like Okta, Poynt, Canva, and Legion.
“Our primary lens for partnering with founders is that we’re firm building ourselves, and we’re going to be here for a long time because we’re building a franchise. Our goal is to be the first call on that short list of founders,” Rishi Talaria, GP Garuda Ventures, said in an interview.
About Garuda Ventures
Supporting founders at the earliest stages, the firm is backed by the expertise of Rishi Taparia, Arpan Punyani, and James Richards. Taparia and Punyani’s extensive experience in scaling companies further works alongside their determination to form a dedicated and understanding partnership with upcoming startups. Some of the firm’s portfolio companies include Canva, Airbase, Noyo, AllStripes, and Leap.
Before the trio officially started Garuda Ventures in late 2021; Taparia raised $3 million in 2018 for a “proof of concept” fund and invested in 32 companies. With the new fund; the company plans to target 25 to 30 companies with check sizes ranging from $500,000 to $1 million. Currently, Taparia and Punyani have already invested in 13 companies from the new fund.