Colossa WomenFirst Fund
Snapshot
Fund Type: Venture Capital
Fund Size: $60MM
Investment Stage: Seed to Series A
Geographic Focus: India
Sector Focus: Climate & Sustainability, Healthcare, Education, Financial Inclusion
Fund Overview
Colossa WomenFirst Fund is the inaugural early-stage venture fund from Colossa Ventures, a female and fully locally led venture capital management company in India. The Fund provides early-stage capital to women-led businesses building a greener and more inclusive future in India. The Fund targets seed to Series A investments across climate, consumer, and enterprise sectors, backing companies led or co-led by women. Despite women making up half the population and driving over 75% of household decisions, women entrepreneurs remain underfunded, even as data shows their business success rates are on par with male-led peers.
In India, 18% of unicorns have at least one female founder, and 33 women-led unicorns and soonicorns have already surpassed a combined US$30 billion in valuation. Yet, Colossa’s research shows access to capital, market linkages, and mentorship remain major barriers for women founders. Colossa was founded on the conviction that ‘WomenFirst’ investing delivers strong financial returns alongside deep climate and social impact.
Why We Invested
Colossa WomenFirst Fund integrates a dual focus on climate and inclusion, targeting scalable early-stage solutions that benefit climate-vulnerable communities and women. The fund applies an explicit and deeply embedded gender lens across its investment thesis, strategy, and operations. It sets clear targets for female ownership, leadership, and business transformation. Gender-disaggregated data is collected, and gender equity is embedded through both intentionality and process.
The team actively addresses systemic barriers for female entrepreneurs, particularly around access to Capital, Capability, and Confidence, leveraging Colossa’s proprietary “3C’s” framework. Investments also target climate-smart products and services that serve women directly, with the ambition to drive transformational change.
Women as Agents of Change
Colossa WomenFirst Fund sees women not just as participants in economic growth, but as catalysts of systemic change across business, society, and the economy. This lens is embedded throughout the fund’s investment thesis and process, from sourcing and selection to post-investment engagement. Colossa believes accelerating women-led entrepreneurship is one of the most underutilized levers for unlocking economic value and achieving inclusive, sustainable growth.
An example of this is Exposome, a leading materials chemistry company directly addressing one of India’s most pressing and overlooked climate challenges — industrial air and water pollution — through customizable, regenerable molecular filters that eliminate toxic pollutants from effluents and emissions across industries ranging from data centers to semiconductors.
Led by Dr. Prerna Goradia, a materials chemist with more than 30 global patents, Exposome exemplifies how women’s technical leadership can drive inclusive climate innovation. Her team’s solutions are not only low-cost and scalable, but also designed with end users in mind, improving uptake in resource-constrained settings. Recognized by the UNDP as a Women Climate Champion, Dr. Goradia is advancing pollution reduction technologies that protect the most vulnerable — while building a globally relevant business grounded in equity and impact.
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