First Cheque, an early-stage venture capital fund, plans to invest in 15 to 20 companies from its third cohort over the course of the next 18 months.

Usually, the first check size is up to $500,000.

Kanika Agarwal, the partner at India Quotient, said, “Over the past few years, we have realised that the pre-seed market offers many more options beyond what we were providing for these pre-seed founders to raise funds. There are angel investors, family offices that are quite active, and micro-VCs that are doing a good job.” 

She added, “So, for us, we want to tweak the programme a bit and work with all these groups, investing alongside them, where the cheques can be a little larger as well.”

First Cheque, a division of India Quotient Venture Capital, was established in 2018. Its limited partners, primarily family offices and institutions in India and abroad, make pre-seed investments.

The company’s investment strategy is sector-neutral, but over the next 18 months, it is particularly interested in supporting direct-to-consumer (D2C) entrepreneurs.

“There are a lot of D2C brands, but that also means there are many ‘me too’ brands. So, what we’re trying to find are truly differentiated ones in categories that are completely empty… We’re hoping to find great kids’ brands, great brands in sports and white goods, and a whole bunch of Gen Z brands,” said Agarrwal.

Over 130 startups have received investments from the Bengaluru-based company, including the reverse osmosis (RO) water supplier DrinkPrime, the software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Rocketlane, the upskilling and career development platform Seekho, the fleet management platform Fleetx, the jewellery brand Giva, and the generative artificial intelligence startup Simplismart.

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