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Seattle and Bangalore-based, Unitus Seed Fund, is in the process to close its $50 Mn (INR 30 Cr) India-focused fund. The venture capital firm expects to get the first tranche of the new fund by the end of this year or early next year.
The firm is in talks with some of its existing investors including Bill Gates’ Gates Foundation, Ranjan Pai, Mohandas Pai and others for the new fund.
Unitus plans to invest in around 25-30 companies across healthcare, education, fin-tech, agriculture and other sectors with an average investment size of $150K (INR 1 Cr) to $450K (INR 3 Cr).
Will Poole, co-founder and managing partner of Unitus Seed Fund said, “At a time when there is a pullback by some investors, it is important that we have money to help our companies survive with follow-on funding.”
Unitus’ first fund was a $23 Mn fund, which was established in 2012. Unitus Seed Fund also organises competitions like StartHealth, for healthtech startups, and StartEdu, for edtech startups in India.
He added that the investment firm’s portfolio startups has a high survival rate with just three write offs and two partial recoveries.
Unitus has invested in startups like DriveU, Hippocampus, Blowhorn, iBreastExam, Jack on Block, Labinapp, AddressHealth, and BetterPlace among others. Poole added that eight companies from Unitus have raised Series A funding, two have raised Series B and one startup is about to raise Series C investment.
The development was first reported by TOI.
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