Sustainability-focussed Caret Capital has marked the first close of its second venture capital fund at INR 160 Cr (around $18.70 Mn), which has a target corpus of INR 400 Cr ($46.75 Mn).

For its Caret Capital Fund II, the VC firm has raised capital from Bajaj Auto, Transport Corporation of India (TCI) and a US-based non-profit private foundation.

Speaking to Inc42, Pankaj Bansal, cofounder and managing partner at Caret Capital, said that the VC firm aims to invest in 25 startups with an average ticket size of INR 12-15 Cr.

Without disclosing the names, Caret Capital further said in the statement that it has lined up four investments from the second fund.

These investments include a subscription-based electric two wheeler platform serving gig workers, a battery lifecycle management company, a livestock feed distribution startup for rural India and an AI-powered SaaS platform for carbon emissions tracking in supply chains.

Bansal also shared that the fund is targeting its final close by the end of this year. “Initially, we were expecting to close the fund by next year but looking at the response from our investors, we are well on track to close it by this year-end itself.”

The development comes more than a year after Caret Capital and Ev2 Ventures jointly announced .

Founded in 2020 by Bansal and Prajakt Raut, Caret Capital is an early stage VC firm which aims to invest in the sustainability space. Last year at the time of the launch of the fund, Caret Capital and Ev2 Ventures announced their merger. The merged entity now includes the likes of Celcius, Unstop, Traqcheck, EVeez, Awign, and Enmovil as part of its portfolio among others.

The current fund is managed by Bansal, Raut and Karan Mittal who is a general partner at Ev2 Ventures.

The firm also has a startup accelerator programme which offers capital, hands-on support, and deep market access for early-stage startups.

This comes at the heart of a number of VC and private equity (PE) firms launching new investment vehicles to support the growth of the Indian startup ecosystem.

Earlier this year, early stage-focused second fund at INR 120 Cr to fuel growth of B2B tech startups and and Mumbai-based growth stage investment firm.

Besides, PE firm Multiples also .

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