Japanese venture capital firm Incubate Fund Asia said Thursday it has marked the first close of its third fund that will invest in Indian and Southeast Asian startups.
The VC also said its India-focused entity, Incubate Fund India, has been rebranded to Incubate Fund Asia to broaden its mandate to investing in pre-seed and seed-stage startups in India and Southeast Asia.
With the rebranding, the firm is aiming to broaden its vision from just India to the Asian startup ecosystem, signifying “a deliberate alignment of the organization's brand identity”, Incubate said in a statement.
The new fund has a target corpus of $50 million (Rs 416 crore), the VC firm said. It didn’t specify the level at which it marked the first close, a fundraising milestone that VC and private equity firms use to start deploying capital.
“Our mission is to empower startups across Asia,” said Nao Murakami, Founder and General Partner of Incubate Fund Asia. “With the target fund closure of $50 million, we will be ready to enhance our support to emerging ventures, driving sustainable growth and innovation.”
Incubate Fund Asia expects to bet on about 20 startups through the fund, with about 60% of capital reserved for follow-on rounds for ‘winners’ in its portfolio. Its check size ranges from $500,000 to $1.5 million.
The VC firm, which has offices in Tokyo, Singapore, Bengaluru, Mumbai, São Paulo, and Mountain View, has been investing in India since 2016. It has made about 27 investments in the country so far. These include business-to-business fish and seafood company Captain Fresh, electric mobility startup Yulu, e-commerce platform ShopKirana, and insurtech startup Plum.
Incubate’s previous India fund was launched in 2019 with a corpus of $18 million. The VC firm’s focus is broad in scope, ranging from business-to-business, business-to-conusmer, supply shain, and consumer tech startups operating across both Tier I and Tier II markets markets in the country.
