Latest News | 9Unicorns Announces Third Close of Accelerator Fund at USD 40mn

New Delhi, Apr 16 (PTI) 9Unicorns on Friday announced the third close of its first accelerator fund at USD 40 million (about Rs 298 crore) to fund idea-stage startups in the country.

The Venture Catalysts (VCats)-backed accelerator's total fund size is USD 70 million (about Rs 520 crore) and plans to mark the final close this year.

The third close witnessed participation from leading global and Indian industrialists and businesses and some of the key limited partnerships (LPs) include Haldiram's, Indian Bank and Ahmedabad-based Chona Family Office, a statement said.

"The sector-agnostic fund has already committed investments in about 40 startups within seven months of its first close. Of that, 25 per cent of startups have already raised bigger rounds of investments within a range of 2X–4X valuation," it added.

9Unicorns plans to fund about 150 early-stage startups in DeepTech, B2B SaaS, Media, FMCG, FinTech, InsureTech, HealthTech, EduTech, Travel logistics, among other sectors over the next year.

Its portfolio includes interactive video shopping platform Toch.ai, revenue-based financing firm Klub, fertility care provider Janani, marketing automation firm ExtraaEdge, audio production automation firm Deepsync, D2C lifestyle footwear brand Monrow, and edutech Qin1.

"As a fund, we aim to back early-stage companies that have the potential to become billion-dollar companies in the future. We have made our third close much before our set target and are looking to make the final close soon to propel an already thriving startup economy. Our agility and speed at which we raise and deploy our funds differentiate us from others," 9Unicorns Managing Director and founder Apoorva Ranjan Sharma said.

In addition to the third close, the Mumbai-based accelerator fund has also launched an initiative - Catalysts Program - to build an open community of founders, chief experience officers (CXOs), and the ecosystem drivers to fund, and mentor early-stage startups.

The programme will function along with the 9Unicorns Fund and aim to disrupt the traditional VC structure and build a network of over 1,000 catalysts worldwide, the statement said.

The idea is to identify and shortlist curated startups for 9Unicorns for investment and co-investment, mentor the existing portfolio startups for 3-5 months and introduce institutional investors for next-round financing in 9Unicorns deals, it added.

As an accelerator fund, 9Unicorns invests around USD 150,000 for 5-7 per cent equity per startup at the idea stage.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)