Startup News: 9Unicorns marks fifth close of its maiden fund at $100 million

Startup incubator and accelerator 9Unicorns, which counts unicorns like Vedantu and ShipRocket on its portfolio, on May 9 said that it marked the fifth close of its maiden fund at $100 million.

The fund, which claims to have invested in over 110 deals so far, said that it plans to invest $500K to $1 million in the idea stage and as much as $2 million in high-growth stage Series C and above startups this year.

9Unicorns said that it had launched the fund in late 2020 with a total size of $50 million but extended it to $100 million due to 'the overall positive sentiment in the Indian startup ecosystem and fund's portfolio performance.' The company is now looking to extend the fund to $130 million. 9Unicorns also said that it plans to launch its second fund after fully deploying this fund by mid 2023.

Apart from Vedantu and ShipRocket, 9Unicorns has so far invested in startups like Melorra, Reshamandi, Biddano, BluSmart, IGP.com, Faarms, Instoried and GoQii, through its maiden fund, the company said, adding that it will continue to focus on investing in deeptech, enterprise SaaS (software-as-a-service), Web 3.0, fintech, media, insuretech, healthtech, edtech and direct-to-consumers (D2C) startups.

"Last year was one of the best times for the startup ecosystem with a funding rush. We invested in 101 deals in 2021 and plan to double that amount this year," said Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Managing Director and Founder of 9Unicorns.

"We will finish deploying the fund by mid next year, post which we plan to launch our second fund," Sharma added.

9Unicorns said it enables its portfolio companies to directly get access to early customers, distribution partnerships and cross-portfolio synergies through its pre-existing network of over 5,500 investors, founders, and executives in the ecosystem.

9Unicorns said India has over 209,000 startups citing data from data analytics firm Tracxn Technologies, with just 1,535 getting seed funding. The venture fund said it is thus focusing on bridging this gap. 9Unicorns claimed to be reviewing and reaching out to over 700 startups monthly.