Decacorn
Decacorn is the buzzword of the start-up world.
Coined by Bloomberg in 2015, Decacorn refers to the new breed of start-ups that are worth US$10 billion or more in the private (unlisted) market.
In late 2013, only Facebook was in this category, but as of today SpaceX, ByteDance (TikTok), Open AI, Stripe, Databricks, Revolut, Epic Games and a dozen others have made it to that list, while some early entrants have headed out from there for their IPO.
Tech startups worth US$1 billion are often referred to as Unicorns. Today, there are more than 400 of them around and fast increasing, creating generational wealth for their founders and early investors with patient capital like never before.
Unicorns and Decacorns might be imaginary, but this new generation of disruptive technology start-ups with rapid innovation cycle led adoption curves is not a myth, but a reality – the new normal - changing for good the way we live, work, and play on this planet .
Our Story
Decacorn Capital is a cross-border venture funding initiative, centred around start-ups that use technology innovatively to create a defensible moat. Start-ups that are led by high-caliber, resourceful founders who are out there with the mission to build something useful that people want and are willing to pay for.
Our journey in this exciting world of start-ups is often on roads seldom traveled. In these lonely roads, we love to co-invest with bell-weather investors and pioneers in high-impact startups disrupting large market opportunities, either existing or newly enabled, based on deep customer insights, with the aim to make our planet shades better than what we inherited.
Our endeavor is to secure our lives and livelihoods, wealth and assets in this rapidly changing digital era where machines replace humans in all that is “dull, dangerous and dirty”.
Differentiator
At Decacorn Capital, we seek to curate startups that are tech defensible, have a clear path to monetization and have crossed an “Inflection Point”.
We aspire to join the journeys of rare gems, mostly original or early mover ideas, that have the potential to become not just unicorns or decacorns but the next Magnificent-7 (Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta & Tesla) tech mega-caps, generating
“Superior Alpha”.
We invest in start-ups that use deep customer insights to connect the underserved with pioneering, deep-tech, disruptive innovations-
“The World is our Oyster”.
As a consequence, we have investments spread across all five continents inhabited by humans, stitching together a
“String of Pearls”.
We endeavor to provide a ring-side view inside the world of top quartile, tech-enabled start-ups to
non-institutional accredited investors for generational wealth creation, thus
“Democratizing Private-Tech Investment” .
Approach
Curating startups with rapid innovation cycles and large adoption curves, across 6 technology platforms:
We adopt a bar-belled approach of investing in Early stage (Seed/Series A) start-ups with large multiplier effects, as well as in Growth-stage (Series B and beyond) start-ups offering instant gratification and a big margin of safety.
Following a stage-by-stage investing model, our initial bite size is between US$300-600k, with US$100k-1M being the outliers, going up all the way to US$3M across two or more follow-on funding rounds.
PORTFOLIO
THEY SAY EXITS ARE RARE
Thankfully, not so around these woods…
54 investments
12 exits/IPO’s/Buyouts
11 Decacorns/Unicorns
Team
Entrepreneurs Speak
Alon Kantor, Founder & CEO
“Debneel and the Decacorn team have been valuable partners in our journey as entrepreneurs. Beyond providing crucial financial support, they have also been an active part of our team, working closely with us to navigate the complex landscape of our industry.
Their commitment to building a strong and lasting partnership has not only helped us achieve our short-term goals, but has also positioned us for long-term success. We are grateful for their continued support and look forward to a fruitful collaboration in the future.”
- Alon Kantor - Founder & CEO of Toka
Ryan, CEO
Patryk, CIO
Tyler, CFO/CTO
"Decacorn VC exemplifies visionary investing, fostering innovation with unwavering support and strategic guidance. Their unique approach empowers startups to realize their full potential, driving transformative change in the global market. Decacorn's passionate, forward-thinking team cultivates strong partnerships, paving the way for tomorrow's success stories and cementing their position as industry leaders in venture capital."
- Ryan, Tyler & Patryk - Founders of Turion Space (YC S21)
“I have known Debneel for several years and have always been intrigued at Decacorn Capital's differentiated investment style of curating cross-border, tech defensible disruptive innovators that have crossed an inflection point.
It was thus but natural for me to reach out to Decacorn for an investment in Mighty Buildings where our endeavor has been to build sustainable affordable 3D printed homes with a cap table of investors who are in for long term and has an ability to pony up on their investments in subsequent rounds.
Trust we would have a great journey together towards being a Decacorn and beyond."
- Slava Solonitsyn - Co-Founder & CEO of Mighty Buildings (YC W18)
Alexey, COO
Dmitry, CTO
Slava, CEO
Sam, CSO
Andy Chan
Winston, CEO
"We are very grateful to have the opportunity to work with the team at Decacorn. They have given us sharp insights and sustained encouragement for our business. Debneel and Abhijit deeply understand our vision here at Qupital and that is a core attribute that we look for in our investors. It is exciting to be able to grow our company together with Decacorn and we believe their presence in Singapore is very helpful to our global expansion strategy."
- Andy & Winston - Founders of Qupital
From the moment we first met Debneel at a small London cafe in January 2020, we knew immediately Decacorn was a VC fund we wanted to work with going forward. He was deeply interested in us as founders, as people, what made us tick and how we had grown into founding this company. It was refreshing and established a good bond from the get-go. We got to meet the rest of the team later via video calls on many occasions and they’ve all been supportive where it has been needed, given advice on things we’d not have thought of ourselves and challenged us to look at new markets for hiring and new verticals we may not have considered otherwise. A fantastic value-add investor, we are grateful to be working with Decacorn on our journey.
- Karen & Taavi - Founders of Fyma
Karen, CEO
Taavi, CTO
It’s been a pleasure working alongside the Decacorn team across multiple rounds of funding. The team has a strong, cross functional knowledge and also has a deep pool of industry connects that they leverage to help add strong value to their portfolio companies.
- Greg Moran - Founder of ZoomCar
"The Decacorn team especially Debneel and Abhijit with their disruptive approach to Venture Capital, and their incessant quest to think outside the box, has been providing a fresh yet unique perspective.
Today they are much more than lead investors to us. They are our trusted partner and a great friend; a must ‘go-to’ for our roller coaster ride, as we find them to put "Affable first" in all their discourse with us! That what we like most about Decacorn.
As an outcome, Affable has rapidly transformed itself from two lone co-founders with a dream, to an exciting, rapidly growing startup with cross-border footprints, all set to raise our Series A.”
- Nisarg & Swayam - Founders of Affable.AI
Nisarg, CEO
Swayam, CTO
Tuhina, CEO
Liang Zan, CTO
“Decacorn has been a huge part of our journey so far. Encouraging, when we're in the troughs, illuminating, when we're lost, without their support, Propine would not have won the trust of the regulators and our customers.”
- Tuhina & Liang Zan - Founders of Propine
We are glad that we have Decacorn Capital as our lead investor. Decacorn takes a very hands off approach to their portfolio companies, and have provided us complete freedom to run our business the way we want, but they are there immediately to support us whenever we need any help or guidance. Both Abhijit & Debneel are very approachable people and being entrepreneurs themselves, they understand what it takes to build a successful startup.
- Somsubhra & Himanshu - Founders of AI Palette
Somsubhra, CEO
Himanshu, CTO
Partners
