In an effort to invest in innovation to promote gender equity and sustainability, the gender smart investment platform Achieving Women Equity (AWE) Funds has announced the launch of its maiden India focussed fund of Rs 350 crore.
As per the official release, the newly-launched fund will invest in approximately 15 startups over the next five years in healthcare, climate and sustainability (Clean, Green, Circular and Water), food and agri, education, and fintech.
The fund is a SEBI registered fund and has attracted investment support from blue-chip international and India-based institutional and HNI investors. India-based HNI investors include leaders like Zia Mody (Founder – AZB and Partners), Soumya Rajan (Founder and CEO – Waterfield Advisors), Padma Chandrasekaran (formerly Gates Foundation), and Divya Sampath (formerly Microsoft, Cognizant, Service Now) among others.
AWE Funds has set a goal of empowering 30 million women to gain ‘agency’ by 2030 through a quantitative threshold-based gender lens gating criteria to invest in women-owned, led or influenced (disproportionate supply chain or market making) companies. AWE Funds pursues investments at an early stage of an enterprise’s lifecycle (Pre-Series A, Series A equity rounds) and additionally 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 deliver market returns for its investors.
Seema Chaturvedi, Founding Partner of AWE Funds, said, “The need for women to join the mainstream economic value creation has gained serious urgency, especially in the setting of an overall scarcity of resources to achieve sustainable development goals. We believe that AWE Funds can play a very positive role in catalysing this much-required change at a stage when it is most impactful through an effective allocation of capital.”
To date, the team has mobilised and invested close to Rs 28,000 million. In addition to this, the firm warehouses four portfolio companies namely Freshokartz Agri Pvt Ltd (Agritech), Blackburn Technologies Pvt Ltd – dba Remedico (Healthtech), Agam International (Fintech) and Velmeni.ai (Healthtech).
