YC-like Indian accelerator eyes $500m second fund

9Unicorns, an India-based accelerator VC focusing on early-stage startups, is looking to set up a US$500 million fund in the latter half of 2022.

9Unicorns co-founders (from left): Anil Jain, Gaurav Jain, Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, and Anuj Golecha / Photo credit: 9Unicorns

Its team has already begun initial discussions around setting up the global fund.

9Unicorns will raise funds from limited partners across the world and invest in global companies started by local or international founders to solve problems that the Indian market and the Indian diaspora face, Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, the VC fund’s co-founder and managing director, told Tech in Asia.

The platform will continue investing in idea-stage startups but will also look for opportunities in late-stage companies. For every idea-stage firm, 9Unicorns writes checks of between US$100,000 and US$150,000. For late-stage bets, it injects between US$300,000 and US$1.5 million per company.

It plans to use capital from the second fund to invest in nearly 15 to 20 startups per month. This fund will have a life cycle of 6 to 7 years. While it is sector-agnostic, the fund will focus specifically on investments in agritech and supply chain logistics this year.

A 5x larger fund

The US$500 million fund would be 5x larger than its first fund, whose corpus stands at US$100 million.

9Unicorns is currently making investments from its first fund. Of the fund’s US$100 million in capital, the accelerator has put nearly US$33 million into 90 startups so far. It plans to invest another US$33 million from the fund over the next six months and keep the rest for follow-on rounds, said Sharma.

Y Combinator has already transformed idea-stage investments in the US and has created one of the best mentorship platforms globally. We are trying to improvise upon what they have done so far

The platform has invested in startups such as Vedantu, Shiprocket, Melorra, Klub, GOQii, Chingari, and ReshaMandi.

A YC for Indian startups?

Besides providing funding, 9Unicorns also offers 90 hours of mentorship over three months and across 40 sessions to startups in its portfolio.

“Y Combinator has already transformed idea-stage investments in the US and has created one of the best mentorship platforms globally. We are trying to improvise upon what they have done so far,” said Sharma.

9Unicorns is looking to write bigger checks to idea-stage startups than Y Combinator does, Sharma said. He added that 9Unicorns was also open to cutting checks to growth-stage startups.

The fund also works with these portfolio companies to strategize business growth and scalability to help them raise their next round.