Unitus Ventures to close $100 million third fund next year; to focus on job-tech startups

The VC fund, which has offices in Bengaluru and Seattle, also plans to close a Rs 300 crore opportunity fund, through which it will invest in successful startups from its first two funds.

“We have two funds active in India right now. The vintage is 2013 and 2018, and we have $50 million in management in the two funds. They are both fully committed and largely deployed. We’re also starting to make some deals prior to closing Fund III, which will be closed sometime next year,” Poole said.

Through the first two funds, Unitus Ventures has invested in sectors such as fintech, job-tech, ed-tech, healthcare, artificial intelligence and enterprise tech.

Most recently, the fund invested Rs 7 crore in the latest fundraise of its portfolio company Masai School, a skilling platform.

With the third fund, Poole said, Unitus Ventures will increase its focus on areas such as job-tech, enterprise Software as a Service and sustainability and climate. The VC firm started raising money for the fund late last year.

“One area that we have really focussed on increasingly since we made our first investment in India in 2014 is job-tech. We really see ourselves doubling down in that area,” Poole said. “Another area that we are starting to see more of is enterprise SaaS — for domestic or overseas markets. A new area that we’re just starting to explore is sustainability and climate.”

Job-tech solutions

On the job-tech ecosystem, Poole said the fund would be looking to invest in solutions across the employment journey.

“Our initial investments in the space were in blue-collar job-tech, in a company called BetterPlace. They have done incredibly well and are now the leading HRMS for blue-collar employment in India. We have other investments in the gig sector through a company called GigForce. We’re also starting to see job-tech for white collar workers,” he said.

“We’re going to be looking more broadly at the whole employment experience — from sourcing, hiring, onboarding, training and compliance to ultimately offboarding. Then there’s also financial services opportunities, especially in the blue-collar sector,” Poole added.