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Early-stage venture capital firm z21 Ventures has raised $20 million as the first close of its $40 million second fund, with participation from WestBridge Capital as the anchor investor.

Founded in 2022 by IIT Kharagpur alumni, Raj Singh, Abhinav Shashank, Jyotika Gupta and Sudarshan Ravi Jha, z21 Ventures will focus on investing at the pre-seed and seed stages of funding in the segments of artificial intelligence, enterprise software, and healthcare.

The VC firm’s first fund was $5 million in size and has been fully deployed across 26 startups.

On the closure of the initial fundraise, z21 Ventures Co-founder and Managing Partner Raj Singh said, “This successful fundraise is a validation of our community-led model and our track record of identifying and supporting promising early-stage companies. We look forward to supporting entrepreneurs to build and scale purposeful companies by bringing the power of community and capital.”

The founders of the venture capital firm are entrepreneurs too. Abhinav Shashank is the co-founder and CEO of Innovaccer, the healthcare-focused SaaS unicorn. Raj Singh was also part of the leadership team at Innovacer. Sudarshan Ravi Jha is the Co-founder of LetsTransport.

The VC firm will look at raising capital from leading operators and experts who will mentor and support founders.

WestBridge Capital Co-founder and Managing Partner Sumir Chadha said, “z21 Ventures is well-positioned to succeed, and their community-focused and operator-led model can provide valuable support for early-stage founders and help build category-defining companies.”

“Our limited partner community helps us with early access to incredible founders and provides founders with deep functional and strategic expertise, strong connections and a supportive ecosystem in their initial journey. We are on a mission to unlock value for founders through a robust ecosystem,” said Jyotika Gupta, partner at z21 Ventures.