Women-Focused VC Colossa Ventures Raises INR 100 Cr for Colossa WomenFirst Fund The Colossa WomenFirst Fund will make investments in startups where women are the primary beneficiaries or in startups led by women.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Colossa Ventures has announced the first close of its maiden fund – Colossa WomenFirst Fund at INR 100 crore.
It received funding from entities, including SIDBI, the family office of Ranjan Pai, and Shriram Ownership Trust, among others.
The fund will mainly concentrate on investing at the Pre-Series A stage and beyond, with a target corpus of INR 500 crore. Colossa sees enormous potential in the consumer, deep tech, healthcare and healthtech, fintech, climate and clean tech, and deep tech sectors based on its vast research.
Ashu Suyash, Founder and CEO of Colossa, said, "Colossa's mission is to unlock the great potential of India's trillion-dollar women economy that is not just under penetrated, but underinvested in, and underestimated. It seeks to do so by identifying, backing and fast-tracking high potential. Women entrepreneurs building disruptive businesses through powering them with Colossa's proprietary 3C framework: Capital, Capability, and Confidence."
Co-founded in 2022 by Ashu Suyansh and Vandana Rajadhyaksha, Colossa WomenFirst Fund is a sector-agnostic venture growth fund, that aims to transform the startup landscape by concentrating only on companies that are either women-founded or co-founded, or in which women are the primary beneficiaries.
S.P. Singh, Chief General Manager Incharge Venture Finance and Investment Vertical SIDBI said, "With Women's contribution to GDP expected to register strong growth in the coming years our organisation is looking to back exceptional women founders who can contribute to building a sustainable and inclusive future. We believe that the Colossa team is well placed to do so and we are proud to invest in the Colossa WomenFirst fund."
Dr. Ranjan Pai, Chairman, Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG) added, "Colossa's vision resonates with our commitment to fostering long-term growth by empowering underrepresented entrepreneurs in India. As women increasingly take the lead in building substantial businesses, we see our participation in Colossa WomenFirst Fund as strategic deployment of 'confidence capital' to fuel the growth of women entrepreneurs."
