Cornerstone Ventures Launches a Second Fund with USD 200 Mn Corpus for B2B Enterprises The Mumbai-based firm intends to make investments in a variety of software platforms and marketplaces that serve industries like retail, consumer goods and e-commerce, financial services and insurance, distribution and supply chain, and healthcare goods and services.

Cornerstone Ventures, a venture capital firm specialising in business-to-business (B2B) enterprise technology investments, announced on Tuesday the launch of its second fund with a target size of USD 200 million, including a green-shoe option of USD 50 million.

According to the official release, with the second fund, Cornerstone Ventures plans to invest ticket sizes ranging from USD 5 million to USD 15 million in a mix of early-growth and scaled startups. It intends to use the most recent capital to invest in 15 to 20 firms.

The firm intends to invest in software platforms and marketplaces that serve a variety of industries, including retail, consumer goods and e-commerce, financial services and insurance, distribution and supply chain, healthcare products and services, and sector-neutral core technology advancements.

Abhishek Prasad, Managing Partner, Cornerstone Ventures, said, "We aim to back some of the largest value creators in this space of 'Next Generation Enterprise Technologies', whether building in India for the world or building exclusively for the domestic market.

"We particularly like innovations that catalyse core business processes, tend to engage multiple stakeholders across the value chain, thus building multiple revenue streams, and have demonstrable account-level profitability. Such businesses do not require capital for sustenance but really to drive growth," he added.

With an initial investment of around USD 50 million, the firm established Cornerstone Ventures Fund-I in 2019. With a primary focus on business models, including B2B corporate software-as-a-service, the money was allocated among 21 portfolio firms.

The firm claims that it has facilitated USD 1-2 million additional annual recurring revenue for each of its portfolio companies and has been an active participant in their respective growth journeys. After around four years of investment, its first fund recovered nearly 4X growth in the cumulative revenue base across the portfolio.

The first fund was anchored by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade's Fund of Funds (managed by SIDBI) and the Self-Reliant India Fund (managed by the State Bank of India).

Currently, Cornerstone Ventures is also in the process of onboarding large institutional investors for Fund-II.