The first integrated incubator in India and a full-stack investor for early to growth stage businesses, Venture Catalysts Group (Vcats++), has revealed that around 54 of its portfolio companies have exceeded a $50 million valuation this year.

Despite difficult conditions that caused investment to drop by 70% this year, Venture Catalysts expanded significantly, hosting over 33 soonicorns and over 100 minicorns. At least twenty businesses have been valued at more than $100 million each, and in the past year, three startups, Shiprocket, BharatPe, and Vendantu, have become unicorns.

Venture Catalaysts Group or Vcats ++ is an early-to-growth stage fund that includes five funds ranging from early stage to sector focused).

The company had first launched its $150 million accelerator fund in 2020 post which it has launched four more including – Venture Catalysts Angel Fund, a $200 million fintech focused fund called Beams, proptech fund Spyre, and $200 million growth stage sector agnostic fund Elev8.

The group has a combined portfolio of over 300 startups whose consolidated valuation is pegged at around $10 billion thus making it the country’s largest early to growth stage investing platform. 

 “The valuations assumes importance at a time when the fears around a possible funding winter continues to spook investors and startups not only in India but worldwide too. It talks volumes about the growth and up-rounds of the  portfolio companies. Most of our portfolios have done extremely well in the last two years and we see atleast 3-4 turning Unicorns next year,” said Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Cofounder Venture Catalysts Group.

Venture Catalysts has invested in 301 deals across 200 startups since the time of its inception, making it India’s leading early-stage investing platform. 

The company has driven early-stage investments worth $100 million (INR782.4 crore approximately) through its network.

Across 67 startups, 94 deals were executed, out of which, 27 deals gave partial or full exits, while the remaining witnessed up-rounds. Corresponding to 17 deals, 13 startups have been written off due to the failure to recover assets, or given less than 1x return.

The integrated incubator has made pre-seed, seed, and Series A investments in entrepreneurs with strong value propositions, and has supported its portfolio in later rounds. BharatPe, Vedantu, Zingbus, Beardo, SuprDaily, Innov8, Home Capital, and BlowHorn are a few of the largest businesses in its portfolio.

Venture Catalysts has the largest network in the nation, with over 3000 angel investors spread across 55 cities, and it has contributed to raising awareness about startup investments through its well designed masterclasses and customised startup programmes.