India has seen a great success in the startup ecosystem and ‘investors’ play a very crucial role in bringing these emerging startups on the surface.
Do you know everything about Venture Capital?
The Venture Capital is the funding or investment that is made in SMEs (Small & Medium Enterprises) and startups with an expectation of high growth potential. They also work upon bringing up the technical and managerial expertise to the ventures they choose to invest in. Who are these Venture Capitalists?? .. They are insurance companies, large corporations, pension funds or usually high net worth individuals seeking for profits by investing in your little innovative venture.
They work in broadly two models- VCs that invest in new-age industries or VCs who buy the vision of the founders
SMEpost has interestingly lined-up five Venture Capitals with maximum investments so far:
Indian Angel Network
Founders: Alok Mittal
Key Sectors: E-Commerce, Healthcare
Indian Angel Network has made 92 deals so far across the globe, investing in 88 companies, it is a syndicate of over 400 angel investors across the country. They follow a unique concept which brings together highly successful entrepreneurs and CEOs from India and around the world who are interested in investing in startup / early stage ventures which have the potential of creating disproportionate value.The firm has seen three exits so far – mobile video streaming company Jigsee was acquired by Vuclip, clinical research company Karmic Life Sciences was acquired by Cliantha Research, and PeelWorks, which raised $2 million (roughly Rs. 13.3 crores) in Series A funding from Inventus, and IDG Ventures.
Ventureast
Started in: 1997
Key sectors: Technology and Technology-enabled, Life science and clean environment, Seed and incubation stage businesses
Ventureast is a pioneering Indian VC fund manager with close to $300 million under management. They have a rich history of investing in innovative businesses across multiple sectors, and multiple stages of a business – from seed and early to growth stages. They have made over 70 investments. Its portfolio investments include LoyltyRewardz, which was acquired by Billdesk. Portea Medical and Little Eye Labs, which was acquired by Facebook in January 2014.
Helion Ventures
Started in: 2006
Founders: Rahul Chandra, Ashish Gupta, Kanwaljit Singh, Sanjeev Aggarwal
Key Sectors: Technology, Education, Financial Services, Healthcare
Helion Ventures primarily makes investment in technology and technology-powered businesses such as eCommerce, Online services, Mobility, Enterprise Software and Outsourcing. Its well known ventures comprises of grocery delivery service Bigbasket, two leading EdTech firms – Toppr, and Simplilearn, real-estate aggregator Housing.com and e-commerce marketplace Shopclues. In total it has hit 110 deals in 75 startups till now.
Kalaari Capital
Started in: 2006
Founder: Vani Kola
Key Sectors: E-commerce, Education, Healthcare
Kalaari Capital falls under the list of prominent players in the industry. It has raised three venture funds of $650 million in total. It has made some notable investments that include EdTech startup Simplilearn, e-Commerce plays like Snapdeal, and Urban Ladder and personal assistant app Haptik. Its Indians exits includes mobile video delivery platform Apalya, which was acquired by Arre, a digital media brand founded by Ronnie Screwvala in December 2015 and Myntra, which was acquired by Flipkart in May 2014.
Blume Ventures
Started in: 2011
Founders: Sanjay Nath, Karthik Reddy
Key Sectors: Software, Mobile, E-commerce
Blume Ventures is a tech-focused early-stage venture capital firm. So far, it has invested in about 105 deals and 83 startups since its inception. It basically works on providing seed funding in range of $50k to $250k to early stage ventures. Its notable investments include hyperlocal delivery service Roadrunnr, warehouse automation player GreyOrange and event booking platform Explara.It launched a $30 million fund in December 2015.