{"id":2930,"date":"2014-09-02T10:28:40","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T17:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/?p=2930"},"modified":"2015-01-04T09:39:11","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T17:39:11","slug":"unitus-seed-fund-new-investors-propel-fund-over-usd-20-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/updates\/unitus-seed-fund-new-investors-propel-fund-over-usd-20-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Unitus Seed Fund’s new investors propel fund over USD $20 million"},"content":{"rendered":"

New investors in India\u2019s most active Micro VC impact fund demonstrate that commercial and philanthropic investors are drawn to impact investing<\/h2>\n

2 September 2014. San Francisco<\/strong>: Unitus Seed Fund, India\u2019s most active seed-stage impact investor, has secured an additional USD $7 million in commitments for a total of USD $20 million for its India-focused Micro VC fund. This significantly exceeds the fund\u2019s minimum target size of USD $15 million, demonstrating interest in Unitus\u2019 investment strategy and overall enthusiasm for impact investing opportunities in India. The funds will be invested in early-stage startups operating in India in sectors including\u00a0healthcare<\/a>,\u00a0education<\/a>,\u00a0agriculture<\/a>,\u00a0skill development\/livelihoods<\/a>,\u00a0technology<\/a>\u00a0and basic\u00a0necessities<\/a>. Unitus Seed Fund has already\u00a0announced 13 investments in India<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\nUnitus Raises Funds for India from Global Foundations<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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New institutional and individual investors in Unitus Seed Fund<\/strong><\/h4>\n

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\nNew institutional investors include\u00a0Michael & Susan Dell<\/strong>\u00a0Foundation<\/strong>,\u00a0Lemelson<\/strong>\u00a0Foundation<\/strong>,\u00a0Sorenson Impact<\/strong>\u00a0Foundation<\/strong>,\u00a0Deshpande<\/strong>\u00a0Foundation<\/strong>, and\u00a0Wadhwani<\/strong>\u00a0Foundation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"new-investors-image-strip-750x75\"<\/p>\n

New individual investors include Amazon executive\u00a0Diego Piacentini<\/strong>, Microsoft executives\u00a0Soma Somasegar<\/strong>,\u00a0Bharat Shah<\/strong>,\u00a0Anoop Gupta<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Nagesh Pabbisetty<\/strong>, Social Venture Partners leaders\u00a0Todd Vogel<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Lance Fors<\/strong>, financial services executive\u00a0Geeta Iyer<\/strong>, McKinsey executive\u00a0Dilip Wagle<\/strong>, Concur Technologies CEO\u00a0Steve Singh<\/strong>, and multiple others.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very pleased to have such a prominent group of leadership investors in our pioneering India-focused Micro VC fund,\u201d said Dave Richards, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Unitus Seed Fund. \u201cWe believe that there is a great opportunity to invest in a new generation of entrepreneurs who are building disruptive new businesses serving the one billion under-served low-income market in India.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commercial and philanthropic investors drawn to impact investing<\/strong><\/h4>\n

While some of Unitus\u2019 new investors are well known names in impact investing (e.g., Lemelson and Sorenson), most of them are first-time impact investors. \u201cI have been looking for investment opportunities that align my entrepreneurial and business passion with driving sustainable and scaled social change,\u201d said\u00a0Steve Singh<\/strong>, CEO of Concur Technologies, Inc. \u201cVia Unitus and other impact investments, I expect to receive a competitive rate of financial return and to see millions of lives improved over the coming years.\u201d<\/p>\n

“While we have been able to deliver regional impact through our Sandbox initiative based in South India, we realize that for the best entrepreneurs to go national, more capital and support is needed than we can provide,” said\u00a0Desh Deshpande<\/strong>, Trustee of Deshpande Foundation. “We see our investment in Unitus Seed Fund as highly complementary to and syngeristic with our philanthropic goals to realize impact across India.”<\/p>\n

India-based investors can still participate in the fund<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Unitus is not accepting any new investors into its dollar-denominated seed fund. Its affiliated India-based rupee-denominated seed fund (SEBI-approved AIF structure) is accepting investments from Indian nationals and non-resident Indians (NRI\/NRO) until December 2014.<\/p>\n

Joining prominent group of existing investors in Unitus Seed Fund<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"founding-investors-thumbnails-2\"<\/p>\n

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These new investors have joined with previous global investors including\u00a0Jeff Clark<\/strong>\u00a0(Impact Investment Leaders),\u00a0Vinod Khosla<\/strong>\u00a0(Khosla Ventures),\u00a0Hari Kumar<\/strong>\u00a0(Formerly Goldman Sachs), and\u00a0Bob Gay<\/strong>\u00a0(Co-Founder of Bain Capital),\u00a0Mike Murray<\/strong>\u00a0(Former Microsoft & Apple executive),\u00a0Pradeep Singh<\/strong>\u00a0(Aditi) and other investment leaders.<\/p>\n

\"india-founding-investors\"<\/p>\n

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Additionally, Unitus Seed Fund has raised commitments from India-based investors including T.V.\u00a0Mohandas Pai<\/strong>\u00a0(Formerly Infosys CFO),\u00a0Dr. Ranjan Pai<\/strong>\u00a0(CEO of Manipal Education and Medical Group),\u00a0Hemendra Kothari<\/strong>\u00a0(DSP Blackrock),\u00a0Pramod Saxena<\/strong>\u00a0(Oxigen),\u00a0Hema Hattangady<\/strong>\u00a0(Conzerv\/Schneider),\u00a0Ananda Kallugadde<\/strong>\u00a0(Neobytes),\u00a0Rajeev Bakshi<\/strong>\u00a0(METRO Cash & Carry),\u00a0Ravi Venkatesan<\/strong>\u00a0(Infosys, Microsoft, Cummins) and\u00a0Srikanth Iyer<\/strong>\u00a0(Pearson, Edurite).<\/p>\n

About Unitus Seed Fund<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Unitus Seed Fund is India\u2019s most active seed impact investor, funding BoP startups that serve large low-income populations. Unitus Seed Fund plans to grow its\u00a0portfolio of 13 companies<\/a>\u00a0to at least 30 startups in sectors including skill development \/ livelihoods, agriculture, technology for development, healthcare, education, and access to basic necessities. Unitus Seed Fund is part of the\u00a0Unitus Group, a successful financial services group operating in multiple emerging markets since 2000. Unitus Seed Fund has offices in Bangalore and Seattle.\u00a0More about Unitus Seed Fund ><\/p>\n

More about\u00a0Unitus Seed Fund Investors ><\/a><\/h2>\n

Tags: deshpande<\/a>, fundraise<\/a>, impact investing<\/a>, impact investors<\/a>, lemolson<\/a>, MSDF<\/a>, sorensen<\/a>, venture fund<\/a>, wadhwani<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New investors in India\u2019s most active Micro VC impact fund demonstrate that commercial and philanthropic investors are drawn to impact investing 2 September 2014. San Francisco: Unitus Seed Fund, India\u2019s most active seed-stage impact investor, has secured an additional USD $7 million in commitments for a total of USD $20 million for its India-focused Micro… Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_aioseop_title":"Unitus Seed Fund's new investors propel fund over USD $20 million","_aioseop_description":"India\u2019s most active seed-stage impact investor has secured a total of USD 20 million for its India-focused Micro VC fund","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[156,25,157,158,159,50,160,154,161],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unituslabs.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}