Unicorn India Ventures to set up Rs 400 cr fund

Unicorn India Ventures (UIV) Monday said it will launch a Rs 400 crore equity fund that will invest in early-stage startups across areas like fintech, health-tech, robotics and gaming.

The fund size is Rs 400 crore and first close is expected at Rs 150 crore by the year-end, UIV said in a statement.

The Fund II will look to invest in pre-series A and series A rounds in sectors like B2B, SaaS, fintech, health tech, robotics, gaming and digital content, it added.

UIV, a Mumbai-based venture capital firm, will be raising capital for Fund II from institutional and large family offices in India and overseas and start deploying it by end-2019.

"We launched our first fund in 2015 and since then invested in a variety of startups ranging from consumer internet to on demand to media tech. Around late 2017, we actively started scouting for investment opportunities in more tech heavy sectors like AI, robotics, IoT, 3D cyber security and fintech," UIV Managing Partner Anil Joshi said.

In the first fund, UIV has invested in 18 companies like VLCC VanityCube, Inc42, Sequretek, Pharmarack, GrabonRent, Inntot, Genrobotic, SectorQube, Perfit, NeuroEquilibrium, SmartCoin, Open Bank, Boxx.ai, Clootrack and Openapp.

In the second fund, UIV plans to enter at an early stage with an average investment size of Rs 3-5 crore and follow up to series A and B by backing high-potential startups.

The investment size has the potential to go up to Rs 10-30 crore in follow-on rounds, the statement said.

Unicorn Ventures had last year also announced a UK-India cross border fund in partnership with UK-based early-stage VC AscensionVentures, which has invested in six growth stage companies in the European nation so far.