Bhaskar Majumdar, managing partner at Unicorn India Ventures, confirmed the first close of the IITM Unicorn Frontier Fund I at approximately Rs 453 crore. The target corpus for the fund, announced earlier this year, stands at Rs 1,000 crore.
The investor mix is distinct. Majumdar told TOI that individual investors and family offices drove the majority of the raise, rather than traditional institutional heavyweights. About one-third of this initial capital came from overseas, while the remaining two-thirds originated from India. IIT Madras alumni played a significant role in the fundraising, though the fund has not disclosed the names of individual Limited Partners.
The fund is already moving money. It has deployed nearly Rs 55 crore across four capital-intensive startups that typically require years to reach commercial scale. The portfolio includes Quanstra, a quantum computing startup; Hathor Rocket, a spacetech firm; Triolt Energy, a battery technology company; and Carbelim, focused on carbon capture.
Individual investment cheques in these four companies have ranged from Rs 10 crore to Rs 20 crore. This strategy targets the "deeptech" gap—sectors where traditional VC often hesitates due to long time-to-market horizons.
The fund aims to close its full Rs 1,000-crore corpus in subsequent tranches, continuing to seek a balanced mix of domestic and international family office capital to support India’s frontier technology ecosystem.