Unicorn India Ventures announces first close of second equity fund at $12M

The second equity fund of Rs 400 crore was announced last year. Unicorn India has raised funds from domestic investors comprising family offices and investors from the first fund. 

The fund expects to reach a final close in next 12 months, which is expected to see participation from large institutional investors. With the first close, Unicorn India has also announced its first investment in a Thiruvananthapuram-based startup SaScan Meditech.

SaScan is an innovative neo-diagnostics startup developing integrated hardware and software solutions for medical diagnostics. Founded in 2016, Sascan is currently focusing on bringing OralScan to the market, a handheld, fully automated solution for non-intrusive oral cancer screening. 

The company is also working on clinical trials for a device to screen for another common type of cancer. With the new funds, SaScan will explore the possibility of developing its proprietary technology for the diagnosis of other types of epithelial cell carcinomas and pre-cancerous abnormalities with a vision to build a comprehensive diagnostics solutions range for easy, accessible and early cancer detection.

Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Venture, said, 

“Our commitment to nurture Indian startups is unwavering and we will keep scouting for innovative ventures as done in fund-I. Having announced our first investment from fund-II simultaneously is a testimony to that. SaScan is building a range of devices and solutions to detect early signs of cancers. Their methodology of making cancer detection less painful and more accurate in pre-diagnosis impressed us to invest in it.”

From the new fund, Unicorn India will participate in pre-Series A and upwards rounds. The cheque size is expected to be a million dollars. The fund house expects to invest in 20 firms from the second fund. 

Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures, added, 

“Our first fund has been performing quite well. Many companies from the first fund like Open Bank, Genrobotic, Sequretek, Smartcoin are scaling up faster than its peers. They have already caught the attention of many top-notch international funds. With this second fund, we hope to continue our track record of identifying innovative business models with faster scalability across sectors B2B, SaaS, healthtech, robotics, gaming, and digital content.”