Early-stage venture capital firm Unicorn India Ventures, which is an investor in companies such as retail startup Daalchini, neo-banking firm Open and robotics startup Genrobotics, has teamed up with IIT Madras Research Park to launch a deep-tech-focused VC fund.
The new fund, which will back intellectual property-led, engineering-driven startups emerging from India, has set an outlay of Rs 600 crore (around $66.2 million), with an additional Rs 400 crore greenshoe option.
The vehicle, titled IITM Unicorn Frontier Fund I, will invest in more than 25 startups across sectors such as robotics, space technology, defence technology, semiconductors and medical technology.
The fund’s average first cheque size will be Rs 8-10 crore. It will follow a dual-stage investment strategy, with a majority of capital directed toward early-stage companies. It will reserve around 40% of deployable capital for follow-on investments to support portfolio companies through commercialisation.
A significant portion of the fund’s corpus will be deployed within the IIT Madras ecosystem, while the remaining capital will be invested across the broader Indian deep-tech landscape. The fund is structured as a long-term “patient capital” vehicle with a total tenure of 12 years.
Unicorn India Ventures has been appointed the fund manager and will lead capital mobilisation from IIT Madras alumni, family offices, institutional investors and other global limited partners. The firm will also build a co-investment platform to ensure portfolio companies have access to follow-on capital.
The launch comes soon after Unicorn India made the final close of its third fund at Rs 1,200 crore, topping its initial target of Rs 1,000 crore.
The VC firm focuses on technology-led investments in emerging sectors. Through the third fund, it plans to back startups working in areas such as semiconductors, space technology and AI infrastructure, which it views as critical to the next phase of technology-led growth.​
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