New Delhi-based early-stage venture capital (VC) firm Blume Ventures has made the first close of its new opportunity fund, Fund 1Y at $25 million (Rs 200 crore). The company is aiming to make the final close at Rs 400 crore by August. 

As reported by The Economic Times (ET), Blume Ventures will utilise three-fourths of the infused capital to buy assets held by its existing funds. In addition to this, the company will use the money to provide an exit option to the investors. 

"We have a very large number of companies doing very well, and our Fund-I is coming to an end,” Ashish Fafadia, partner, of Blume Ventures, told ET. 

“We want to solve two problems. We want to make sure that we have the corpus to invest more capital into the winners that are coming up and the second thing we want to solve is that wherever there are very strong Fund-I companies … that will go down the path of an IPO in the next 4-5 years, we want to find a way to hold these positions,” he added.

Blume Ventures has backed nearly 150 start-ups. Its portfolio includes companies like Unacademy, Spinny, Slice, Grey Orange, Turtlemint, and Carbon Clean. 

The development came a few months after Blume Ventures closed its Fund IV at $290 million. The company is eying to back 30-35 start-ups from its fourth fund. It also raised a similar size opportunity fund in 2021.