Unicorn India Ventures

Unicorn India Ventures (UIV) is a Mumbai-based, SEBI-registered early-stage venture fund founded in 2015 by Bhaskar Majumdar and Anil Joshi. It invests as the first institutional cheque in technology-focused founders building defensible intellectual property with a clear path to profitability, and is deliberately contrarian — avoiding hype-driven sectors. Across three funds UIV has built an active portfolio of more than 60 companies, including its neobanking unicorn Open, plus Sequretek, Genrobotics, Pharmarack, SmartCoin, EyeROV and OrbitAID, and has seen multiple acquisitions. Its third fund, closing near INR 1,200 crore, marks a sharp pivot toward deep technology: roughly 80% of capital is earmarked for semiconductor design, space and defence, alongside SaaS, fintech, climate-tech and agritech. UIV typically writes initial cheques of around $1–2 million (about INR 10 crore) and reserves substantial follow-on capital — up to $10–15 million — for its strongest companies, deploying only a portion of the corpus initially and concentrating reserves on winners. Fund III's limited partners are split roughly evenly between international investors, domestic institutions, and Indian family offices and UHNIs. The founders bring an unusual blend of media, corporate and angel-network experience, and Anil Joshi is known for candid, governance-focused mentorship of founders.