Unicorn India Ventures, a Mumbai-based category one fund, is looking to raise around Rs 60 crore for the final close of its maiden corpus of Rs 100 crore. It will focus on financing early stage start-ups.

The final close is expected by June this year. A first close of Rs 40 crore was achieved earlier in January.

According to Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partner, Unicorn India, funds will be raised mostly from corporates (industry houses), high net worth individuals, institutions and other technology entrepreneurs.

“By June, we should close the fund and it would look to focus on funding start-ups in early stages particularly within the country,” he said, adding that attempts will be made to tap HNIs and industry houses in the eastern region.

These investors have looked at investing in equity shares, land and other inter corporate deposit markets. The idea would be to make them look at investing in the start-up corpus as an alternative.

Unicorn India has already tied-up with J R Laddha Financial Services (JRLFS).

Reports state that Indian start-ups had raised capital to the tune of $ 4.9 billion last year.

Funding

So far, Unicorn has invested in four ventures. The first was an inter-city cab aggregator, Roder.

This will be followed by investments in VanityCube, an on demand beauty service; Inc42, a start-up focused news portal, and in Pharmarack, a pharma billing solution provider.

The fund is looking to invest in 10 to 12 start-ups in a year. “Over a three-year period, we will look to have some 30-odd start-ups in our portfolio,” Majumdar said.

Ideal funding will be to the tune of the Rs 50 lakh to Rs one crore.

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