[Funding Alert] VC fund PointOne Capital announces the first close of its maiden fund

Pre-seed focussed venture capital fund, PointOne Capital, announced the close of the first round of its maiden fund. The Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) registered under category one at the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) plans to gather a total corpus of Rs 50 crore with the aim to invest up to Rs 1 crore per startup.

India is said to be the third-largest startup economy in the world after the US and China. Ravish Ratnam, Managing Partner at PointOne Capital said that with India producing entrepreneurs at an unprecedented rate, the capital needs to catch up too.

He further added, "PointOne has been set up to partner with the founders at the most fundamental stage, one which has the most number of variables (and hidden variables)." 

Further commenting on the first round close, Mihir Jha, Managing Partner at PointOne Capital, said, "Raising funding at a beta stage or pre-PMF stage is challenging for founders — it becomes too risky vis-a-vis the traction for larger VCs unless the founders come with a proven entrepreneurial track record. We are willing to take those risks in favour of the opportunity and the new insights the team brings to the table. Another problem is feedback in cases where an investor is not interested in investing. PointOne believes in changing that paradigm."

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PointOne Capital is a sector-agnostic VC fund focussed on investing in technology-enabled startups at the pre-seed and seed stages. It aims to solve the funding gap for startups at the pre-product and revenue or the beta launch phase with very early traction. The fund is founded by Archana Priyadarshini, Mihir Jha, and Ravish Ratnam.

The fund has invested in several startups in the past including B2C neobank Finin, SaaS startups ConnectedHand Opmagic.ai, and several others.

PointOne Capital plans to make at least one investment every month, going forward.