Colossa WomenFirst Fund raises Rs 100 crore in first close

SEBI-registered independent venture capital management company Colossa Ventures has announced the first close of its maiden fund - Colossa WomenFirst Fund at Rs 100 crore, it announced on Thursday.

Investors for the fund include institutions such as SIDBI and family offices of Ranjan Pai and the Shriram Ownership Trust.

Founded by former MD and CEO of CRISIL Ashu Suyash and Vandana Rajadhyaksha, ex-Partner of ICICI Ventures and Aditya Birla Private, the fund aims to unlock the vast potential of the Indian female economy, Colossa said in a statement.

“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,” Ashu Suyash, Founder and CEO of Colossa said.

Colossa Women First fund is sector agnostic which only focuses on WomenFirst businesses - which include Women-founded or co-founded companies, or where women are main beneficiaries. 

With a target corpus of Rs 500 crore, the fund will focus on early-stage investments, particularly at the Pre-Series A stage and beyond. 

Colossa said it sees opportunity potential in sectors such as healthcare and

healthtech, as well as fintech, climate and clean-tech as well as deeptech and consumer sectors.

Through the investment, Colossa said it intends to leverage gender diversity and identify, support as well as escalate the journey of female entrepreneurs building disruptive businesses by their 3C framework, consisting of capital, capability and confidence.