Japanese venture capital fund Incubate Fund Asia on Thursday announced the first close of their third fund with a target corpus of $50 million. The fund’s India-focused entity, rebranded as Incubate Fund Asia to enhance focus on pre-seed and seed-stage startups in India and Southeast Asia, will deploy capital for early-stage investments and also for follow-on investments in startups. The fund targets around 20 startups in its third fund’s portfolio and will invest only 40 percent of its total investible corpus to create the portfolio, while the remaining amount will be used to invest again in startups showcasing high growth. The Incubate Fund Asia was founded and has been led by Nao Murakami, who said that our mission is to empower startups and fuel innovation across Asia. The fund has backed 27 Indian companies across B2B, B2C, supply chain, and consumer tech segments across both Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets, with an average deal size of $500K to $1.5 million.