Pre-seed focused venture capital (VC) fund PointOne Capital has announced the final close of its $7 million (Rs 50 crore) maiden fund. The final close comes within a year of its first close in Dec 2020, the firm said on Thursday.
Successful silicon-valley and India-based entrepreneurs, CXOs, corporate and startup executives, and mid-sized family offices have been onboarded as limited partners (LP) in the fund, which predominantly targets firms in the beta or pre-launch stage, it said.
“Macro sentiment in India has seen a clear shift towards technology, and it was very apparent from the huge participation interest we received from investors across profiles, globally. Combining the fact that our ongoing portfolio wholly comprises category creators across sectors,” said Mihir Jha, Founding Partner at PointOne Capital.
“We saw full subscription well ahead of expected timelines. We will continue in our philosophy of backing startups early, with PointOne being an added hand in enabling them to evolve into future category leaders,” he added.
20 of PointOne's 30 investments were made in 2021, with ticket sizes ranging from $100,000 to $150,000 in industries such as creator economy, gaming, SMB-focused SaaS solutions, corporate SaaS, fintech, healthtech, and edtech.
CreatorStack, a creator engagement tool; Blend.to, a mobile-first Canva equivalent for SMBs; Inai.io, a no-code payments stack for cross-border transactions; ConnectedH, a digitising diagnostics labs; Tamasha.live, an influencer-hosted live game; Poshn.co, a B2B marketplace focused on non-perishables, and others, are among the startups in the portfolio.
“With capital fast becoming a commodity, the tables have turned in the founder-investor relationship. Our final close will enable us to stick to our approach of quick decision-making and non-intrusive value addition for our founders, thus making us a dependable partner for companies looking to raise their first round of capital. We have been fortunate to be associated with 30 startups already, and will look to triple that number in the next two years,” said Ravish Ratnam, Founding Partner at PointOne Capital.