With this Fund, UIV aims to build a portfolio of 25 startups that are focused in global SaaS and digital platforms, Unicorn India’s expertise areas. From the sector’s perspective, the Fund is also exploring investments in newer sectors such as climate tech, agritech, spacetech, and the semiconductor ecosystem.

Founded in 2016 by Bhaskar Majumdar and Anil Joshi, Unicorn India Ventures is a technology-focused early-stage venture fund specializing in investments within emerging sectors. Following the success of its inaugural fund, Unicorn India Ventures introduced Fund II, a $36.12 million fund launched in 2020, which has shown remarkable growth. Many of the companies in its portfolio secured multiple rounds of funding within the initial two years post-investment. Fund II currently manages a portfolio of 20 companies. With two funds under its management and an active portfolio comprising over 35 companies, UIV has consistently demonstrated its knack for identifying unique startups. Notably, a significant portion of the startups in their existing portfolios is either profitable or on a clear trajectory towards breaking even.

With the Fund III, Unicorn India Ventures would continue with their strategy of being the “first institutional investor”. The Fund would look at investing a first cheque of around $ 1 -2 million dollars and would then look to invest in the follow on round. As a part of their investment thesis, UIV invests only 20% of its investible corpus to create the portfolio and the rest to back the winners of the portfolio.

Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures said, “We continue to identify innovative business models with faster scalability. The metrics for us is a clear path to profitability for the companies. Being the first institutional investors, before doing any investment we spend considerable time with the founders to understand their vision, team’s capabilities, growth plans and leadership style. Our focus is to invest in companies that are enablers of India’s digitisation across sectors. We avoid high cash burn businesses like D2C, Consumer Internet, content businesses.”

We believe the raison-d’etre of our existence is to give cash returns to our investors and in this regard, we are clearly one of the best performing funds. We are focussed on bringing newer pools of capital to the country both for co-investments in our portfolios as well as for secondary divestments. Over the years, we have built strong relationships with international funds and family offices that don’t have a physical presence in India but are keenly looking at the India growth story, he adds.  

Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures says, “We have always believed in the Bharat story as much as the India story. While we have invested in startups from Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore but over 60% of our portfolio is built from startups coming from emerging regional hubs like Kochi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune and Hyderabad amongst others. Unicorn is perhaps the only fund which has worked tirelessly with state govt in Kerala, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh to roll out startup policy with an aim to find high potential startups from tier 2 and 3 cities. Our key differentiator is that we are present across India and believe that India’s startup landscape has changed immensely over the past couple of years. With this third fund, our commitment to nurture Indian startups will be unwavering and we will keep scouting for highly innovative companies whose disruptive solutions can address real life problems of users by leveraging technology.”

Unicorn India Ventures has also announced senior hiring for Fund III.

The fast-growing team is joined by Bikram Mahajan as a Partner. Bikram will play a key role in the next phase of the Fund’s growth, with a primary emphasis on portfolio management and nurturing the growth of investee companies. Bikram comes with 20 years of experience in private equity and investment banking with the last decade in fund management. He is an alumnus of IIM Calcutta. Discussing his new responsibilities, Bikram Mahajan, Partner, Unicorn India Ventures, says, “Leveraging my track record and experience, I aim to contribute my knowledge, network and expertise to help the fund scale its business.”

Kamlesh Ahuja joins as VP (Fund Operations) responsible for all compliance and back-office administration for all the Funds. He has  15 years’ experience in fund operations with large cross sector funds as well as with trustees.

The post Unicorn India Ventures Achieves $27.09M First Close for Fund III appeared first on Startagist.

The post Ways to Find Investors for Your StartUp | Startup Funding | How to fund your startup appeared first on Startagist.

The post How To Raise Money For Your Startup appeared first on Startagist.

International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has invested US$2 million in Singapore-based VC firm SeedPlus to support early-stage technology entrepreneurship in Asia.

The investment falls under the IFC Startup Catalyst programme (ISC), which supports entrepreneurs and early-stage companies through investments in various seed-stage structures.

IFC’s investment will help SeedPlus to support up to 20 startups. The programme will also help create hundreds of jobs and through its acceleration cycles, help support local entrepreneurship.

SeedPlus was launched by leading VC firm Jungle Ventures, in partnership with SGInnovate, Accel Partners (India) and Ratan Tata’s RNT Associates, etc. Supported by Google and PwC Singapore, SeedPlus is focused on investing in and helping build Asia’s most disruptive startups across SaaS, mobile, financial technology, Artificial Intelligence and cyber security and other emerging technology areas. Its injects up to US$1 million in each startup.

“The SeedPlus investment aligns with IFC’s Venture Capital group’s strategy to invest in innovative technology companies across emerging markets. Today, there are several fast-evolving, transformative technologies disrupting key industry sectors, enabling entrepreneurship and innovation to flourish in emerging markets, particularly in Southeast Asia, which we see as a growing market for us this year,” said Pravan Malhotra, IFC’s VC lead for Southeast Asia and Asia Internet investments.

“Singapore’s role as Southeast Asia’s hub for venture funding and tech talent will only continue to grow, and amid this landscape, IFC can play an increasingly vital role as a seasoned investor and advisor. The platform also aligns with IFC’s approach to build and support local, sustainable ecosystems for entrepreneurship and venture capital in emerging markets. IFC’s funding and direct investments in portfolio companies will boost seed capital availability, mobilise institutional capital and will better position companies for follow-on funding, sustainability, and job creation,” said Rana Karadsheh, IFC’s Country Manager for Singapore.

SeedPlus is focused on investing in companies that target large addressable markets in Asia and have the ability to expand on a global scale. In India, it has invested in Moglix, an Indian B2B e-commerce platform specialising in the maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) industry.

Picture Credit: Pixabay

The post SeedPlus gets US$2M from IFC to invest in Asian startups appeared first on Startagist.

Delhi-based startup First Step Digital Pvt Ltd, which runs under the brand PeeBuddy, a female urination device, has secured INR 2.96 crore ($450,000) in pre-Series A funding from Indian Angel Network (IAN)

Sanjay Mehta, Ishan Singh and Vikas Kuthiala have led this round of investment on behalf of IAN.

Although India is the fastest growing economy, Indian women continue to suffer the lack of clean & friendly toilets when they travel for professional, social, or recreational reasons. These inconveniences get exacerbated during period related days, medical emergencies, or weather conditions.

The country lacks adequate basic facilities, with toilets being one of them which was the first problem the startup solved. Aiming to bridge the gap and find a solution, Deep Bajaj along with his co-founders Mohit Bajaj and Deepak Thareja came up with an ingenious product called PeeBuddy.

PeeBuddy is a female urination device that allows women to stand and pee even in dirty public toilets, so no more wiping of seats/making chairs and also lessens the risk of contracting infections. The product is also helpful for usage during Arthritis & Pregnancy.

It also offers Sirona, which include Herbal Feminine Pain Relief Patches (to avoid taking pills), Oxo Bio-Degradable Sanitary Disposal Bags (for clean & hygienic disposal of Sanitary Products), Intimate Wet Wipes, Applicator Tampons, and Under Arm Sweat Pads. In wellness, they also have the BodyGuard Range includes Natural Mosquito Patches & Bands.

Speaking at the announcement, Founder Bajaj said: “Women have a lot on their plates these days. We believe our products can assist them in taking care of their Intimate Hygiene & Wellness needs in many peculiar situation which are not discussed openly including lack of friendly toilets, menstrual pains, sanitary disposal etc.”

“Our intent is to assist women travel, live & operate better. We started with PeeBuddy and have received a great response from women across all walks of life. There is a huge market potential for us in the intimate hygiene and personal care market with over 90 million in women in urban areas and over 210 million in rural areas. The funding and support by IAN will help us expand our footprint across the country and create a stronger team across verticals,” Bajaj added.

The Products are available on e-commerce websites like Amazon, Flipkart, Nyakaa, Purplle, Snapdeal, etc and retail stores in Delhi like 24×7, LeMarche, Guardian and NewU. With the recently secured funds, First Step Digital will further focus on making investments in strengthening its market position as well as creating an innovative product portfolio mix and a strong team.

IAN is India’s first and world’s largest business angel network with close to 450 members across the world. Established in 2006 to foster entrepreneurship with prime focus on nurturing and mentoring new generation entrepreneurs, IAN brought the concept of angel investment to India and has been instrumental in bringing India’s startup ecosystem on the global map.

With investors from 10 countries, IAN’s presence spans seven locations, which includes cities in India and UK. The network is sector agnostic and has funded startups across 17 sectors in India and 6 other countries growing global footprint companies. In the calendar years 14,15 ,16 IAN has invested about over 32 Million USD in approx. 60 deals.

The post IAN invests $450K in female urination device PeeBuddy appeared first on Startagist.

Zenatix Solutions, an IoT- and Machine Learning-based  energy efficiency startup, has raised $1.2 million in pre-Series A round of funding. pi Ventures, an early-stage fund co-founded by seasoned investor Manish Singhal, led the round, with co-investment from existing investor Blume Ventures.

Earlier, Zenatix has received capital infusion from a group of angels, including Rahul Khanna (Trifecta Capital), Rajan Anandan (Google) and Snapdeal co-founders, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, in addition to Blume

Zenatix was co-founded by Rahul Bhalla, Vishal Bansal and Dr. Amarjeet Singh. It uses advanced machine learning based models and delivers 10 per cent to 30 per cnet energy efficiency to large commercial consumers of electricity. The models are built by collecting and analysing more than 30 million of previously unseen data points every day from electrical assets.

These models allow for automated and intelligent controls along with predictive and preventive maintenance of these assets, resulting in consistent and comfortable consumer experience in retail and banking sites while delivering high energy savings.

Zenatix aims to address the energy efficiency problem across a range of customers and eventually help grids turn smarter. Its flagship product WattMan addresses the problem for large retail chains and banking/financial set-ups. WattMan is built over a scalable Internet of Things (IoT) stack and includes robust connected hardware developed in-house by Zenatix through extensive research and development.

Given the distributed nature of retail/banking set-ups (hundreds of thousands of outlets/branches, spread across the country), having a control over the electricity spend and providing the right customer experience at the same time is a big challenge.

For example, in a Quick Service Restaurant (QSR), maintaining the right temperature in customer areas, kitchen areas and cold storages is crucial. Also, they need to make sure that all their air-conditioning, kitchen and refrigeration appliances are working optimally all the time. WattMan addresses these challenges in an automated manner through its cloud based intelligent controls driven by advanced machine learning algorithms.

WattMan has won 20 customers (large retail chains/banks) since its launch in April 2016. The company aims to continue adding more customers with additional focus on scaling up with the existing customers.

“We have a subscription based engagement model — the customer doesn’t have to pay anything upfront. It is a fixed annual fee whereby the energy efficiency benefit itself outweighs the fee. Additionally, there are multiple other benefits such as improved consumer experience and ability to automatically audit the usage of electricity. Typically, the customers become cash flow positive from 1st quarter itself,” said Rahul Bhalla, Co-founder and CEO, Zenatix.

The company is currently focused on Indian market, with a plan to expand internationally over next 6-12 months. The current round of capital will be used primarily for hiring across all its functions, viz., Technology, Product, Operations and Sales.

Speaking about the company and opportunity, Manish Singhal, Founding Partner of pi Ventures said, “Zenatix’s integrated approach of building connected hardware, with sophisticated machine learning algorithm to work on resulting dark data generated is what will set them apart. In India cost of electricity is same as in the US, despite the purchasing power parity. Thus it’s a big space with plenty of innovation & upside possibility, given the kind of data, Zenatix is starting to lay its hands on. Current use case of Wattman is a great one, which allows them to sustainably get good quality data sets, while building deep customer value. As they amass more richer data sets, we should be able to tap into predictive insights for equipment and energy usage for their customers”

Rahul further added, “One obvious solution for solving world’s electricity problem is to increase the generation capacity. However, since the demand for electricity is increasing much faster than the supply, only sustainable solution is energy efficiency. Zenatix is committed towards delivering data driven energy efficiency with the aim of building a sustainable planet. We are now at an inflection point in our journey. We worked hard in 2016 to streamline our product offering and value proposition. We now have a strong base of almost 20 customers, each of whom have a very large presence across the country. The money can now be used to expand the customer base and deliver additional value from the product in an automated fashion.”

The post Greentech startup Zenatix raises $1.2M from pi Ventures, Blume appeared first on Startagist.

The year 2016 might not have been a big one for large scale funding, but there hasn’t been much of a roadblock for early-stage funding deals, which continue to ride the startup wave. According to data analytics firm Venture Intelligence, there were 107 funding deals this year, almost at par with last year’s figure of 117 deals, for investments within $1 million.

The top deals in this category were raised by Bengaluru-based self-publishing platform Pratilipi which raised $925,000 in seed funding from Nexus Venture Partners,and others, this June.

The trend changed as the deal size increased. For instance, funding rounds between $1 million and $10 million saw a drop from 205 deals last year to 170 deals this year. The big ticket funding rounds of more than $10 million saw only 56 funding rounds this year, compared to last year’s 93.

Parag Dhol, managing director at Inventus Capital Partners, said that 2016 was a good year barring the big deals. “Indian economy is big enough to support several smaller early stage deals whereas it is not big enough to support several above $100 million deals,” he said.

Dhol added that while the big private equity funds or hedge funds have retreated, the interest of small Japanese funds and the Chinese tech companies supporting several Indian startups make him hopeful of the ecosystem doing well. “They have the money and the right intent. Even Softbank, despite the setbacks, has made the right noises,” he said.

NoBroker, a Bengaluru-based home rental platform, was one of the top companies to raise the maximum funding in the $10-50 million category. The company, which raised its initial funding in 2014, had to face a lot more heat this year when it raised two separate funding rounds of $7 million and $10 million each from two different investors.

“The funding environment has been very tough. When you look at the consumer startup space, many have shut shop that has made investors all the more cautious. Investors are focusing unit economics and revenue generation, hence the funding discussion cycles were elongated. Since we had overseas investors on board who wanted to get an understanding of the Indian perspective, the discussion to deal closure took 3-4 months,” says ‘NoBroker’ co-founder Amit Agarwal.

Karthik Reddy, managing partner, Blume Ventures, said that while the early stage deals not slowing down is an encouraging sign, lack of deals at the series A (first substantial institutional funding) stage might choke a few startups. “It has been a perpetual problem in India’s startup ecosystem and we have seen this not changing in the last five years. Either the startups shut down or they are forced to get acquired.”

The VC firm was one of the top five active investors of 2016, according to another data analytics company Tracxn. Reddy added that while there is enough capital with venture funds, investments have not happened. The percentage ratio of series A funding has to go up substantially.

The post Indian Startup Wave, No drop in Early-stage Funding deals: Study appeared first on Startagist.