Women-Focussed AWE Funds Announces First Close Of Maiden Fund At $15 Mn

Early-stage venture fund AWE Funds on Wednesday (June 7) announced the first close of its maiden fund in India – the Achieving Women Entrepreneurs Early Growth Fund I – at $15 Mn.

AWE Funds is targeting a corpus of $45 Mn for the fund, with a greenshoe option of $15 Mn.

In a statement, AWE Funds said the fund aims to invest in scalable innovations in sectors such as climate tech, agritech, health tech, edtech and fintech while promoting gender equity and climate action as a strategy.

Zia Mody (founder, AZB & Partners), Soumya Rajan (founder and CEO, Waterfield Advisors), Padma Chandrasekaran (angel investor), Divya Sampath (formerly Microsoft), Ajay Prabhu (former COO, Quest Global), Ramakishnan Raman (founder, aXYKno Capital), Vikas Chaturvedi (founder, Valuecent), Sunil Srivastava (CEO, Ampera Life) and Simran Jindal (executive partner- IBM Consulting), among others, are the investors in the SEBI-registered fund.

AWE Funds invests in pre-series A and Series A rounds, mostly post-revenue companies. It is typically the first institutional investor in a startup. AWE Funds also has a separate fund in the US.

The investment platform has already invested in four Indian startups, which, it claims, have helped more than 250K women gain agency while enhancing sustainability.

Commenting on the first close of the fund, Seema Chaturvedi, founding partner of AWE Funds, said, “By focusing on gender equity and climate action which are inextricably linked, the AWE Funds team is uniquely positioned to identify investment opportunities that deliver superior commercial returns to our investors while unlocking serious nation-building impact returns.”

The investment platform has set a target of helping 30 Mn women globally gain agency by 2030. It seeks to accomplish this by investing in companies that promote the participation of women as owners, consumers, producers, employees, employers, leaders and market makers.

AWE Funds’ announcement comes at a time when investors in India have announced or closed funds worth more than $3 Bn since the start of 2023. There have been 32 such announcements so far this year.

While that is impressive in itself, given the ongoing funding winter, investors active in India announced or closed funds worth $18.3 Bn in 2022.

While AWE’s announcement is the first of its kind in June, the likes of Aeravti Ventures, Matrix Partners, Physis Capital, Stride Ventures, 3one4 Capital, Multiples PE and Chiratae Ventures made fund-related announcements in May.