Soonicorn Ventures gets Sebi approval to launch Rs 250 cr angel fund

Investment firm Soonicorn Ventures on Tuesday said it has received Sebi's approval to introduce an alternate investment fund with a corpus of Rs 250 crore.

The newly approved angel fund will have an additional Rs 250 crore available as a green-shoe option, bringing the total fund capacity to Rs 500 crore, the firm said in a statement.

"Soonicorn Ventures (SV), the Gurugram-based investment technology platform, has received regulatory approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to introduce an Angel Fund, operating as a Category-I Alternate Investment Fund (AIF)," it added.

SV has a sector-agnostic approach to investments and will allocate investments ranging from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 4 crore in startups at the initial funding stages.

The platform has been investing in promising sectors, such as Drone Technology, B2B SaaS, Electric Vehicles (EV), Financial Technology (FinTech), Supply Chain Logistics and others.

Soonicorn Ventures' portfolio startups include Zypp, Zingbus, Samosa Party, SupplyNote, AutoNxt etc.

"The newly approved Angel Fund is sized at an impressive Rs 250 crore, with an additional Rs 250 crore available as a green-shoe option, bringing the total fund capacity to Rs 500 crores. This substantial allocation underscores SV's commitment to nurturing and empowering early-stage startups in India," the statement said.

Soonicorn Ventures, CEO and co-founder CA Vijay Singh Rathore said the firm has an ambitious target to build a portfolio of 30 startups this year.

"We are proud to announce that we achieved this milestone in less than 8 months despite a funding winter. With the introduction of this Angel Fund, we aim to provide more flexibility to investors and facilitate single-cap-table entries for startups. Additionally, we will assist syndicates in utilising fund-as-a-service," Rathore said.