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Early-stage venture capital firm Unicorn India Ventures (UIV) is targeting to close its third fund by the end of December this year. The firm is currently exercising the greenshoe option of ₹200 crore, as it has already raised the initial target amount of ₹1,000 crore.
Fund III expected to close at ₹1,200 crore
“The Fund III is going exceedingly well, and we are just at the final stages of closing the fund. We have already crossed ₹1,000 crore, so we will be exercising the greenshoe option, and by the end of December, we will close the fund closer to ₹1,200 crore,” said Bhaskar Majumdar, the managing partner of the firm.
Speaking on the limited partners (LPs) backing the fund, Majumdar said, “We have a mix of investors. One-third of our investors have been international investors (mostly from the United States), one-third are domestic institutional investors, and the remaining are domestic ultra-high-net-worth individuals and family offices.”
Deep-tech, defence, and space sectors to get major focus
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From this fund, UIV plans to invest 80 per cent of the capital in deep-tech companies in domains such as semiconductor design, space, and defence. Its target is to invest in around 20 companies, with an average ticket size of $2 million.
To date, the firm has deployed capital in around 16–17 companies, including space-tech startup OrbitAID. Majumdar said that 2–3 companies are currently in the pipeline.
Selective investments with strong follow-on strategy
UIV typically invests 20 per cent of the corpus as the first cheque and reserves the remainder for follow-on investments in portfolio winners. Majumdar added that following this process, the firm usually sees that around 20 per cent of the companies end up receiving 50 per cent of the capital.
Track record from previous funds
Earlier, UIV had launched its first fund with a corpus of ₹100 crore. From this fund, the firm invested in 17 companies, including fintech startup SmartCoin, neobanking platform Open Bank, cybersecurity firm Sequretek, and deep-tech company Genrobotics.
Later, in 2020, it launched its second fund with a corpus of ₹300 crore and invested in 20 companies. Some of these include esports platform Gamerji, edtech startup ForeignAdmits, insurtech company Probus, electric vehicle startup Esmito, and fintech firm Finin.
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