Unicorn India Ventures on Tuesday said that it has marked the first close of its third venture capital fund at Rs 225 crore (around $27.2 million).
The early-stage venture capital firm, which is looking to raise as much as Rs 1,000 crore for the third vehicle, is expecting to make the final close of the fund by the end of the financial year 2024.
Unicorn India Ventures is targetting to invest the corpus in startups in basically two of its priority segments: global software-as-a-service (SaaS) and digital platforms. It is also looking at newer sectors of climate tech, agritech, spacetech and the semiconductor ecosystem.
With the Fund III, Unicorn India Ventures would continue with its strategy of being the first institutional investor, the investor said, adding that the fund would look at investing a first cheque of around $1-2 million and would then look to invest in the follow-on rounds.
“Being the first institutional investors, before doing any investment we spend considerable time with the founders to understand their vision, team’s capabilities, growth plans and leadership style. Our focus is to invest in companies that are enablers of India’s digitisation across sectors. We avoid high cash burn businesses like D2C, consumer internet and content businesses,” said Bhaskar Majumdar, managing partner at Unicorn India Ventures.
Also, as part of its investment thesis, the VC firm will only invest 20% of its investible corpus to create the portfolio and the rest to back the winners of the portfolio.
Founded in 2016 by Majumdar and Anil Joshi, Unicorn India Ventures is a technology-focused early-stage venture fund that invests in startups in emerging sectors.
It had launched its second fund with a total corpus of Rs 300 crore in 2020. To date, it has invested in 20 companies from its second vehicle. It also has 15 other startups from its first fund. Some of its portfolio companies include Probus, Gamerji, Daalchini, Windo, and ForeignAdmits, among others.
Meanwhile, for the third fund, Unicorn India Ventures has appointed Bikram Mahajan as a partner at the VC firm. He will play a key role in the next phase of the fund’s growth, with a primary emphasis on portfolio management and nurturing the growth of investee companies.
He comes with 20 years of experience in private equity and investment banking with the last decade in fund management. He was previously associated with Aavishkaar Group, SBICAP Ventures, Alpha Capital, Bay Capital, and ICICI Bank.
