Inventus Capital Raises $106M Second Fund To Back US-India Startups

Inventus Capital Partners, an early-stage investment firm based in Menlo Park, Calif. and Bangalore is announcing that it has raised second fund totaling $106 million.

In fact, Inventus says that it has already started investing from the fund, for example with its recent backing of data infrastructure company Espresso Logic.

In the funding release, co-founder and managing director John Dougery (pictured) said the firm was founded in 2007 “to continue our two decades of success partnering with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and helping them access India’s natural advantages adding value to digital services businesses.”

The release also says the firm is focused on digital services companies, arguing that the industry is “in the midst of a transformation from product to service-led businesses,” and pointing to the success of past investments redBus (which was acquired by Naspers), ViVu (acquired by Polycom), and Sierra Atlantic (acquired by Hitachi Consulting) as evidence.

Inventus says it aims to lead a startup’s first institutional round and can invest up to $10 million over the life of a company. It backed 18 companies with its first fund and is planning to invest in 20 to 25 with the second.

The new fund was also revealed in a regulatory filing.