Pearl Uppal's 5ideas closes first seed fund

Startup Superfuel is the first of the five ideas that Pearl Uppal and Gaurav Kachru launched in Oct 2012 under 5ideas platform

5ideas announces the first close of Startup Superfuel, a seed stage fund that provides early stage tech start-ups a blend of human, financial and social capital. Startup Superfuel is the first of the five ideas that Pearl Uppal and Gaurav Kachru launched in October last year under 5ideas platform.

Startup Superfuel is now in the process of making it’s first set of investments that will be announced in the next two weeks. The fund aims to invest in 40 start-ups in the next 3 years, of which 10 to 12 investments will be made this year. Startup Superfuel is specifically designed to fuel start-ups in five areas: Scalable Distribution, Design, Communication & Branding, Metrics that Matter and creating connections for growth.

Startup Superfuel will invest between Rs 25 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore in a start-up, with the ability invest to up to Rs 2.5 crore in follow-on rounds. The fund looks for tech start-ups targeting digital market. While the fund is sector agnostic, it is interested in niche e-commerce, the intersection of mobile and geographical, SME / B2B focused SAAS, education, urban parenting, big data and ad tech. Superfuel Advisors will also work with entrepreneurs helping accelerate their traction with customers and future institutional / corporate investors.

This fund opened its applications in October 2012 and has met over 300 start-ups since. Startup Superfuel is targeting to raise a total of $10 million (Rs 55 crore) and will continue to raise the funds while simultaneously making investments post this closure.