New Delhi, Sept. 9 -- Accion Venture Lab, the US-based social impact investor Accion's investment arm that focuses on early-stage investments, has closed its second early-stage fund that has an India mandate.
The social impact investor closed the Accion Venture Lab Fund II after securing $61.6 million in commitments. The global fund will make up to 30 new fintech investments, it said in a statement.
The firm said it has also rebranded its early-stage investment strategy from Accion Venture Lab to Accion Ventures.
The firm said that both existing and new investors, including commercial and impact asset managers, development finance institutions, foundations, family offices, and financial service companies committed to the fund. Its limited partners include Dutch development bank FMO, France's Proparco, US-based ImpactAssets, Ford Foundation, MetLife, and Mastercard.
Accion Ventures said that, through the new fund, it will focus on delivering social and financial objectives through early-stage venture capital investments in the fintech sector. The capital will be deployed across Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the United States.
"India is a core market for us and up to 30% of this fund can be deployed in India. We invest in innovative early-stage fintech startups in sectors like embedded finance, fintech infra and AI solving real world problems for customers such as MSMEs, farmers, blue- and grey-collar workers and other underserved consumers," said Rahil Rangwala, partner at Accion, in response to VCCircle's queries.
Accion often writes the first institutional cheque to startups, investing before the Series A round. Its first cheque is between $500,000 and $1 million.
In India, the firm has backed companies such as Agrim, a B2B platform for farm inputs; supply chain finance startup Cashinvoice and online credit management startup CreditMantri, among others. It has previously backed and exited non-bank lender Aye Finance.
"With the huge uptick in mobile technologies in emerging economies, we see a significant opportunity to connect many small businesses and low-income consumers to the digital economy for the first time," said Michael Schlein, President and CEO of Accion. "Leveraging third-party capital to deliver social and financial objectives is a critical part of our strategy. This fund seeks to support the growth of early-stage, disruptive companies providing high-quality, affordable financial services that can help reduce poverty and create opportunity for millions of people globally."
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.