Arkam Ventures is an early-stage Indian venture firm co-founded by Rahul Chandra and Bala Srinivasa that leads or co-leads rounds with cheques of $1M-$5M and says it backs no more than six to eight companies a year. Its original thesis was the "digitalisation of Middle India" – companies serving the several hundred million Indians earning roughly Rs 3-20 lakh a year, built on India's public digital infrastructure of Aadhaar, eKYC and UPI. The firm's current site frames the same approach as non-consensus early bets across AI, fintech, SaaS, deeptech, manufacturing and spacetech. Its investment manager is Unitary Investment Management LLP and its two SEBI-registered Category II AIF vehicles are named Unitary Fund and Unitary Fund II.
$106M (Fund I final close, April 2022; Fund II launched 2023 with a $180M target, no final close published) AUM68/100 Power Score™- FoundedBengaluru, India
Rahul Chandra, then co-head of Helion Venture Partners, launches a new early-stage fund under the name Unitary Helion targeting $100M (about Rs 650 crore) (Business Standard, May 2017).
2019
Unitary Fund is registered with SEBI as a Category II Alternative Investment Fund (IN/AIF2/18-19/0644), effective 8 March 2019.
2020
The firm rebrands from Unitary Helion to Arkam Ventures and announces a first close of its debut fund at INR 3.25 billion (June 2020).
2022
Announces the final close of Fund I at $106M in April; investors include British International Investment, SIDBI, Nippon India Digital Innovation and Evolvence, plus individuals including Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Binny Bansal and Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
2023
Launches Fund II with a target corpus of $180M; Unitary Fund II registered with SEBI as a Category II AIF (IN/AIF2/23-24/1303), effective 30 June 2023.