100Unicorns launches $200-m second fund

100Unicorns, part of multistage investing firm Venture Catalysts Group, has launched its second accelerator fund called 100Unicorns Fund II with a target size of $200 million, including a greenshoe option of $100 million.

9Unicorns, an early-stage accelerator fund, has rebranded as 100Unicorns.

The second fund will deploy 10-15 per cent outside India, in the US, West Asia, Africa, and Asia, among other regions.

“Our aspiration is to become the Y Combinator for Indian start-ups. Rebranding to 100Unicorns is the next step in our evolution process. Today, Indians are targeting moonshot ideas in emerging sectors like space-tech, biotech, electric vehicles and cleantech.

On the back of these developments, we are excited about launching a $200-million fund that aligns us to the needs of the Indian start-up ecosystem,” said Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Managing Director of Venture Catalysts Group and cofounder of 100Unicorns.

Sharma told businessline that he expects the first close of the second fund by October, with the aim of nurturing propelling 200-plus outlier startups into the billion-dollar club over the next decade. Its funding ranges from $300,000 to $1 million per start-up in the first round, along with product, business and fundraising support. This is followed by $500,000 to $2 million in subsequent rounds with co-investors.

On the rebranding, Sharma said about one million startups and 1,000 unicorns are expected in India by 2030. “We want to associate and work with 10 per cent of these would-be unicorns. Unicorns are expected to add $1 trillion to the Indian economy by 2030,” he said.

START-UP ECOSYSTEM

He highlighted the significant growth in the Indian start-up ecosystem, with a 15-fold jump in funding between 2015 and 2022.

Sharma expressed confidence that India will emerge as the ‘start-up nation’ in the next 10 years, with the maximum number of entrepreneurs, highest number of unicorns and employment generation.

India is the third largest start-up ecosystem in the world with more than 110,000 start-ups across geographies, according to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and Tracxn. It has 111 unicorns with a valuation of $350 billion.

The first fund, 100Unicorns

Fund I (formerly 9Unicorns) was established in 2020 and had raised $100 million. It has invested in 145 companies across sectors like SaaS, D2C, fintech, logistics and consumer tech. Notable examples include Videoverse, Trunativ, ZyppElectric, Renee Cosmetics, and IGP.