His firm, Mumbai-based Sanskrit Capital, is targeting a corpus of Rs 700-1,000 crore for its inaugural fund, the people said. The firm will be sector-agnostic and will back startups at the series B and series C stages that have established product-market fit and are scaling up.
“It will be a single GP (general partner) fund… Dave is in the midst of receiving the necessary nod from Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) as an AIF (alternative investment fund). The platform is likely to tap domestic family offices, entrepreneurs and founders,” said one of the persons, who did not wish to be identified.
“The fund will write cheques starting Rs 50 crore and may go up to Rs 150 crore, with follow-on funding that it will make in high-conviction bets. While it will be sector-agnostic, the primary themes that it will follow are fintech, consumer internet, logistics, healthcare and enterprise AI (artificial intelligence) applications,” the person added.
Dave did not respond to an email seeking comments.
His move comes at a time when other first-time general partners are in the market to raise independent funds. ET reported on May 15 that former managing directors at Peak XV Partners (earlier Sequoia Capital India), Ashish Agrawal, Ishaan Mittal and Tejeshwi Sharma, are launching a new $350-400 million venture capital fund, Mettle Capital.
Other former Peak XV MDs, Shailesh Lakhani and Harshjit Sethi, have launched Ambition Capital, targeting $250 million for early-stage investments across seed and series A rounds, ET reported first on March 16.
Former Nexus Venture Partners managing director Sameer Brij Verma has also launched his own solo GP firm, Northpoint Capital Management, with a $150 million corpus.
Besides, Z47 managing director Tarun Davda is stepping down from his role at the VC firm later this year and may be exploring launching his own fund.
This year will test the ability of these fund managers to raise capital as limited partners turn increasingly selective amid a thin pipeline of early-stage AI opportunities in India.
Funds like Peak XV Partners are actively scouting AI opportunities in the US to ride the unprecedented deal-making in the technology sector.
Having built Mirae Asset’s India venture practice since joining in 2018, Dave’s portfolio at the South Korean group spanned Zomato, Bigbasket, Shadowfax and Unacademy, along with fintech bets such as KreditBee and Raise Financial Services, which runs the Dhan trading app, and Jupiter.
Earlier, he worked at Kalaari Capital and Mumbai Angels, after having begun his career in trading technology at the MCX-FT Group.
At Mirae Asset Venture, Dave also raised two India-focused funds – a Rs 350-crore early- to growth-stage fund in 2021, followed by a late-stage vehicle with a Rs 700 crore corpus in 2023. He left the investment firm in mid-2025.