The first close of Colossa WomenFirst Fund, the company’s debut fund, has been announced by Colossa Ventures, an independent venture capital management company registered with SEBI, at Rs 100 crore.
The fund’s primary focus will be investments in the pre-Series A and later stages, with a target corpus of Rs 500 crore. Based on research, Colossa wants to carve out a niche for itself in the consumer, deeptech, climate & cleantech, fintech, and healthcare & healthtech industries.
The fund’s approach is to use gender diversity to produce alpha, and it has drawn investors for the first close from a variety of organizations, including SIDBI and family offices like Dr. Ranjan Pai’s Family Office and the Shriram Ownership Trust.
Ashu Suyansh and Vandana Rajadhyaksha co-founded the Colossa WomenFirst Fund in 2022. It is a venture growth fund that is not sector-specific and aims to transform the startup scene by concentrating solely on companies that are founded or co-founded by women, or where women are the primary beneficiaries.
Several funds targeting women are presently operating in India. For background, the CXXO initiative for female founders is run by Kalaari Capital. Achieving Women Equity (AWE) Funds, a gender-focused investment platform, also unveiled its first India fund, worth Rs 350 crore. The search giant Google offers $100,000 in equity-free funding to female-founded startups through a program called Google for Startups Women Founders Fund.
StrongHer Ventures, She Capital, and Saha Fund all concentrate on female founder-led businesses.
