Valmiki Bayou Partners I LP, a Delaware Limited Partnership, is a venture capital fund with Valmiki 504 LLC as the General Partner, with a mandate to primarily invest in the seed and Series A rounds of startup companies in the Louisiana startup ecosystem.

The fund follows Valmiki’s investment philosophy of working closely with its portfolio companies using the “Main Street partners” structure it has created with its incubator affiliates.

The fund deploys capital in seed and Series A rounds in:

• Companies that are based in the Gulf Coast region that the investment manager approves for investment.
• Companies that are based  outside Louisiana but sourced through the global Valmiki Capital structure where certain parts of the company operations can be attracted to Louisiana as part of the investment terms.

The Valmiki Capital philosophy of working with industry incubators and funding new businesses at the incubator level adds the financial layer to the “lean startup” approach it encourages in portfolio companies.

Valmiki/Incubator Investment Process

The above diagram compares this process to the typical VC model and how this allows Valmiki funds access to companies at a much later stage of development than typical VC investments.  Companies go through their initial vetting within the incubator, in a process lasting approximately 6 months.  During this initial incubation period the number of targets is distilled by 70%.  A further 10% of the companies are eliminated after another 3 months of additional work and investment.  This leaves 20% of the original companies eligible for first round funding from the Valmiki fund and co-investors.