Kstart, a seed-stage programme launched by venture fund Kalaari Capital in February 2016, has invested in three startups in its first batch. Affordplan, a fintech platform aimed at affordable healthcare; Indee, a secure platform for web video streaming; and Active.ai, an AI engagement firm for financial services companies have been selected in the first quarter out of 400 startups that had applied for the programme.
Kstart will provide a capital of $500,000 to each of the companies via convertible notes. These notes will be converted into preferred stock as and when the startups close their series A round of funding.
“Around 50% of the companies were in the business-to-business category while the rest were consuming facing ventures. We think this is the right time to fund companies at inception so that we can help them build from the beginning and focus on creating a solution“, told Vani Kola, Managing Director at Kalaari Capital.
Kalaari had announced that each quarter it plans to invest up to $500,000 each in 3-4 startups through the Kstart programme. Without drawing generalizations from the initial data, Kola said the fund has noticed more companies which are coming up in the enterprise space with a focus on global markets. “Bangalore remains the most active in terms of entrepreneurial ecosystem“, she added.
Kstart has roped in Google as its technology partner, which will provide access to its global network and products. Industry veterans such as Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, and ex-Cisco chief technology officer Padmasree Warrior are also going to mentor the selected startups. Kalaari is one of the leading home-grown venture capital firms in India with $650 million assets under management, having invested in startups like Myntra, Snapdeal, Urban Ladder.
Source: The Times of India
