The launch of AWE Funds‘ first India fund, with a capital commitment of Rs 350 crore, was announced on Thursday by the US-based, gender-focused venture capital investing platform. is an initiative to enhance gender equality and sustainability by funding innovation.
According to the business, this freshly established fund will invest in about 15 start-ups over the course of the following five years in sectors including healthcare, renewable energy, food and agriculture, and fintech.
According to AWE, which is registered with SEBI, it has secured investment support from several global and Indian institutional investors as well as high net-worth individuals totalling around Rs. 130 crores (HNIs).
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Among the Indian HNIs who have invested in AWE are people with names like Zia Mody, Soumya Rajan (the founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors), Padma Chandrasekaran (formerly of the Gates Foundation), and Divya Sampath (formerly with Microsoft, Cognizant, and Service Now), among many others.
AWE Funds’ founding partner Seema Chaturvedi. “We have been making investments with a gender perspective that promotes commercial success and sustainable economic growth. We will effectively advocate for a gender-inclusive environment with the assistance of our highly skilled on-the-ground staff in India.
“The need for women to participate in the mainstream economic value creation has become critically urgent, especially in the context of a general lack of resources to accomplish sustainable development goals,” she continued. We are certain that AWE Funds can effectively allocate funds to catalyse this much needed transformation at the precise moment when it will have the most impact.
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AWE Funds has set a target of giving 30 million women “agency” by 2030 using a quantitative threshold-based gender lens gating criterion to invest in women-owned, led, or impacted (disproportionate supply chain or market making) firms.
AWE Funds seeks to invest at the start of a company’s lifecycle (Pre-Series A, Series A equity rounds) and also seeks to assist businesses by utilising the broad range of expertise of the firm’s investment professionals, strategic alliances, and the firm’s international network of executives and advisors to assist businesses produce market returns for its investors.
The company stated in a statement that it “seeks to assist companies with the diverse skills of the firm’s investment professionals, strategic relationships, and the firm’s global network of executives and advisors to assist companies in delivering market returns for its investors.” AWE Funds pursues investments at an early stage of an enterprise’s lifecycle (Pre-Series A, Series A equity rounds), it added.
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