Mumbai-based venture capital firm Unicorn India Ventures has floated its second India-focussed equity fund—and third overall—to back homegrown startups in their early stage.
The fund has a target corpus of Rs 400 crore ($58 million) and is likely to hit the first close at Rs 150 crore by the end of this year, Unicorn said in a statement.
The technology-focused vehicle will invest in around 24 startups in India at the pre Series A and Series A stages with follow-on rounds till Series B.
It will look for startups in sectors such as enterprise technology, fintech, health-tech, robotics, gaming and digital content.
Unicorn managing partner Anil Joshi said the VC firm had launched its first equity fund in 2015 and has invested in a variety of startups ranging from consumer internet to on-demand ventures since then.
Around late 2017, Unicorn “actively started” scouting for investment opportunities in sectors like artificial intelligence, robotics, Internet of Things, cybersecurity and fintech, he said. “Today, our portfolio from the first fund is one of the best performing in the industry and we hope to continue our track record with the launch of the second fund,” said
The VC firm was started in 2015 by Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar. The firm has both equity and debt funds. It mainly invests in early-stage startups in sectors such as consumer, enterprise, healthcare and deep technology.
Unicorn had floated its maiden equity fund in 2015 with a target corpus of Rs 150 crore, with an aim to build a portfolio of 30 companies.
From its first fund, Unicorn invested in 18 companies including VLCC, VanityCube, Sequretek, Pharmarack, SmartCoin, Open, Boxx.ai, among others.
The VC firm launched a debt fund in November 2017. It roped in private-sector lender Federal Bank as the anchor limited partner (LP) for the Rs 600-crore fund. The firm also launched a cross-border fund last year for backing UK-based startups looking to enter India.
VC fundraising
A number of India-focussed funds have hit fundraising milestones this year. In May, for instance, homegrown venture capital firm Nexus Venture Partners received commitment from a few more LPs for its fifth fund that has a target corpus of $450 million.
Earlier that month, venture capital firm Endiya Partners marked the first close of its second fund at $40 million.
Vertex Venture Holdings Ltd, an early-stage venture capital firm backed by Singapore's Temasek Holdings and Japanese venture capital firm GREE Ventures announced a fundraising milestone in May.
Deep-technology and B2B-focused VC firm StartupXseed Ventures LLP and early-stage consumer-focussed venture capital firm DSG Consumer Partners announced fundraising milestones last month.
In February, early-stage VC firm 3one4 Capital announced the first close of a fund that will invest in select portfolio companies that are raising funding from the Series B stage onward.
In the same month, Entrepreneur First, which helps individuals build companies from scratch, marked the first close of its new deep technology-focussed global fund at $115 million.
