Early-stage investment firm SucSeed Ventures has marked the first close of its maiden fund which backs startups in the broader technology sector.
The SucSeed Indovation Fund has raised Rs 40 crore to mark its first close. It plans to raise a total of Rs 100 crore, the investment firm said in a statement. It aims to make the second closing of the fund by February-March next year.
A first close is a fundraising milestone for private equity and venture capital funds that allows them to start deploying the money already committed even as they continue raising the rest of the targeted corpus.
The investment firm also announced three investments it struck after hitting the first close. The fund has signed term sheets to invest in Stargate, Auris and Freestand, said Vikrant Varshney, managing partner at SucSeed.
Stargate is a direct-to-retail cross-border platform for curated lifestyle products. Auris is an artificial intelligence-powered platform that curates and analyses data in real time.
Freestand, a marketing-technology platform, helps fast-moving consumer goods brands to deliver physical product samples to digitally targeted customers.
The fund will participate in investments in seed to pre-Series A stages. It would prefer to invest in six emerging sectors—health-tech, ed-tech, fintech, enterprise software as a service, cybersecurity and regulatory-tech.
SucSEED Ventures is an angel investment network comprising top corporate executives, technologists and serial entrepreneurs. Besides investment, it also provides mentoring and access-to-market facilities.
In June, SucSeed backed Protinus Fashion Networking Pvt. Ltd, which operates fashion commerce and retail management platform 6Degree.
In February, SucSEED took part in a pre-Series A round in Sanfe, a startup that sells women-focussed hygiene products. Titan Capital, an early-stage investment firm launched by e-commerce firm Snapdeal’s founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, also took part.
In January, Uniplatform Tech Pvt. Ltd, which owns real estate software-as-a-service platform MultiplyMyLeads.com, raised funding from investors including SucSEED and Frontline Strategy Funds.
Other companies in SucSEED’s investment portfolio include Stockal, Paymatrix, Leadstart and Sportido.
Several early-stage investors have managed to hit first close of their funds despite the coronavirus pandemic.
In September, early-stage venture capital firm 3one4 Capital hit 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 the first close of its 9Unicorns Accelerator Fund at Rs 100 crore ($13.7 million).
Early-stage VC firm StartupXseed Ventures LLP hit the first close of its second fund that will invest in deep-technology startups. Inflexor Ventures, an early-stage VC firm, marked the first close of a technology-focussed fund at Rs 230 crore.