Pre-seed and seed-focussed venture firm PointOne Capital has marked the first close of its maiden fund which aims to tap into early-stage startups in the broader technology space.
A first close is a fundraising milestone for PE-VC funds that allows them to start deploying the money already committed even as they continue raising rest of the targeted corpus.
PointOne Capital’s fund is planning to raise a total corpus of Rs 50 crore ($6.8 million), as per a press statement.
It will prefer to invest in categories such as fintech, consumer internet, gaming, SME software as a service, enterprise SaaS, healthcare and edtech. The investment ticket size will be up to Rs 1 crore ($140,000) per startup.
"Having met over 500 startups in the last five years, I have seen that the initial days are the most difficult in a founder’s journey. At such a stage, guidance along with capital becomes very important as founders need support in clearly articulating their vision," said Archana Priyadarshini, managing partner at PointOne Capital.
The investment firm was launched in December last year by Priyadarshini, Mihir Jha and Ravish Ratnam. Priyadarshini was earlier with Unicorn India Ventures, while two of her partners were previously with Letsventure.
In the recent past, the early-stage investor sealed two transactions -- diagnostics-focussed startup ConnectedH and neo-bank Finin.
Several early-stage investors have managed to hit first close of their funds despite the pandemic.
In September, early-stage venture capital firm 3one4 Capital said it has marked the first close of its third fund that seeks to raise $100 million (around Rs 730 crore), which is more than double the size of its previous fund.
Startup incubator and accelerator Venture Catalysts announced hitting the first close of its maiden vehicle, the 9Unicorns Accelerator Fund, at Rs 100 crore ($13.7 million).
Early-stage venture capital firm StartupXseed Ventures LLP hit the first close of its second fund that will focus on investing in deep-technology startups.
Inflexor Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, marked the first close of a technology-focussed fund at Rs 230 crore ($31.11 million).
