Unicorn India Ventures, a Mumbai-based venture capital fund that invests in early stage start-ups, has achieved the first close of ₹40 crore of its ₹100-crore fund. It will raise another round by April.
Unicorn will invest from ₹50 lakh to ₹5 crore in start-ups that operate in the Social Media, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) space and IOT (Internet of Things). It plans to invest in 10-12 start-ups a year, according to a press release.
The release said Unicorn has appointed Aayush Jain as a Principal for the fund. Jain comes with over eight years of experience in corporate and product strategy, capital raising, business and corporate development, and M&As across sectors such as technology, media, cloud, digital and consumer.
Founded by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar, Unicorn hopes to build a portfolio of 30 companies in three years. For the first close, Unicorn has got funding from traditional and new investors.
Unicorn, according to the release, has been structured as a hybrid fund. Its first investment will enable the start-ups with a seed round of ₹50 lakh to ₹1 crore, and help them get ready for the Series A round, where Unicorn will participate as a co-investor.
Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn, who was earlier with Mumbai Angels, said Unicorn was betting on sectors such as fintech, app-based businesses helping enterprise solution, cloud technology. A common thread would be that these start-ups would be solving real life problems of either end-users or other businesses.