Unicorn India Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund focused on B2B startups in the social media, analytics and cloud (SMAC) segment, has announced its first closure of Rs 40 crore (around $6 million).
In a statement, the company announced that the total size of the fund would be Rs 100 crore. In December last year, VCCircle reported that the firm had marked the first close at Rs 40 crore ($6 million) as against its original plan of Rs 60 crore ($9 million).
Unicorn India Ventures has appointed Aayush Jain as a principal for the fund. With over eight years of experience in corporate and product strategy, capital raising, business/corporate development and M&As across sectors including technology, media, cloud, digital, consumer and education, Jain will be heading Unicorn’s Delhi operations.
“We are quite clear about the kind of startups and teams we want to engage with. We prefer to invest in a company which has more than one founder. However, we don’t involve ourselves in the day-to-day operations of a company,†said Bhaskar Majumdar, managing partner, Unicorn India Ventures.
The fund will invest in early stage startups operating in areas such as social media, mobile, analytics, cloud tech and IoT. However, it is also open to investing in other sectors such as fin-tech.
“We are betting on sectors like fin-tech, app-based business helping enterprise solutions, cloud technology but a common thread among any of these startups should be that they are solving real-life problems of either end users or other businesses,†said Anil Joshi, managing partner at Unicorn India.
The fund plans to invest in 10-12 startups a year, thereby creating a portfolio of 30 companies in 3 years.
In December last year, Techcircle.in reported that Unicorn India Ventures invested close to $800,000 (Rs 5.3 crore) in four undisclosed startups that operate in the space of beauty and wellness, digital media, cloud and healthcare, respectively.
A SEBI registered AIF-I VC fund, Mumbai based Unicorn India Ventures was founded by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar early last year. Prior to launching this fund, Joshi was heading operations at Mumbai Angels and Bangalore Angels. He has also held several portfolios at companies including Century Rayon, BK Birla Group Company and Transasia Biomedical Ltd and headed new projects and investment in startups with telecom, IT and energy-focused Artheon Group.
Majumdar has held senior corporate positions with Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL), Zee Telefilms and Altavista UK.
In 2000, he started his entrepreneurial venture with digital media company Recreate Solutions which was later sold to a US systems integrator. Majumdar is an IIT Kharagpur alumnus as well as a Harvard alumnus.
In 2015, at least 15 India-focused early-stage funds were launched or raised funding, according to VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle. These include Kalaari Capital, Lightspeed India Partners, Helion Venture Partners, Orios Venture Partners and Peesh Venture Capital. Another VC firm that has recently achieved first close of its fund is Blume Ventures.
