March 19, 2025: The Earth Fund has joined hands with Nikhil Kamath and Abhijeet Pai-led Gruhas to launch a new sustainability and proptech-focused investment fund with a corpus of Rs 200 crore, with an additional Rs 100 crore in green-shoe option. The Fund established under Brigade Group’s Zoiros Projects Private Limited aims to invest in 10 to 15 startups with an average ticket size of about $1-$2 million.
According to Nirupa Shankar, Joint Managing Director at Brigade Enterprise Ltd, the new fund will also reserve 30% of capital for follow-on rounds in about five to six companies,
The primary focus of the Earth Fund will to be to invest in startups engaged in urban tech, encompassing construction tech, real estate solutions, asset utilisation, and sustainability, including climate tech, clean tech, and energy solutions.
Brigade and Gruhas are investing Rs 50 crore each, accounting for 30% of the fund, alongside limited partners, including builders, high-net-worth individuals, and family offices. The two firms expect to start deploying the capital in a couple of months till the next two to three years, with 50% of the total capital used in the first year, 30% in the second, and 20% of the drawdown happening in the third year.
The Earth Fund secures 40% of the Capital
Following dispersal, the Earth Fund will look to exit companies from the sixth or seventh year. Nirupa Shankar (L), Joint MD at Brigade Enterprise Ltd and Abhijeet Pai (R), Co-Founder at Gruhas Venture Capital This is Gruhas’ second partnership for a fund. Last year, the firm partnered with Collective Consumer Fund to launch a Rs 150 crore fund to invest in consumer-focused startups. The new fund also comes at a time when the rising migration of people to urban areas increases the scope for innovation in the urban tech segment.
Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic was a huge catalyst for the real estate sector to adopt technology, according to Shankar, which has resulted in a rise in the number of startups operating in this segment.
“The real estate industry is typically known for having lower productivity because of the low adoption of tech. So some of the technologies that we’ll be looking at are to see how can we make the industry or the build world more efficient and also deliver better customer value,” Shankar added.
The fund has secured about 40% of the total capital, which has been primarily domestic and will close the fund in a couple of years.
