Prime Venture Partners announced Dr. Ashish Gupta as Partner Emeritus (Senior Partner) to strengthen its investment team. US-based Ashish is a renowned serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and VC, having co-founded Helion Ventures in 2005.

At Prime, Ashish will be part of the Investment Committee and actively involved in the decision-making process of all future investments at Prime. He will also serve as a mentor and advisor to the entire portfolio, the fund’s future strategies, and guide the team on several aspects of venture capital investing and portfolio management.

Started in 2012, Prime Venture Partners is an early-stage VC fund led by Sanjay Swamy, Shripati Acharya & Amit Somani. The fund also has a well-known serial entrepreneur, investor, and Aadhaar volunteer, Raj Mashruwala, as a Partner Emeritus.

Dr. Ashish Gupta said, “The Indian startup ecosystem is in a very vibrant phase of its evolution and Prime is well-positioned to be a key player in the building of Digital India. I’ve known all the partners Shripati, Amit, Sanjay, and Raj for the better part of the last 30 years and am delighted to be working closely with them in helping shape Prime’s next phase of growth.”

Ashish Gupta is a well-known and highly respected figure both in the Indian startup ecosystem and in Silicon Valley. He has been an early investor in startups that later became big such as Flipkart and MuSigma. Ashish serves on several boards including Ezetap, Pubmatic, Simplilearn, SMSGupshup, and Naukri. His other investments include Qwikcilver (acquired by Pinelabs), Daksh (acquired by IBM), MakeMyTrip, Upwork, Perfios, and Redbus.

Shripati Acharya, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Prime Venture Partners said, “Ashish is just an incredible all-round person. As an entrepreneur, investor, mentor and friend, he has been the first person we’ve turned to for brainstorming over the years. Founders who interact with him even for a few minutes always appreciate his direct style and insights. We’re privileged to have him formally associated with Prime. This will be a huge step in helping us further improve the quality of our investment decisions, as well as an excellent value-add for our entrepreneurs building companies out of India and globally.”

With more than 25 companies in its portfolio, Prime is bringing a combination of first-hand entrepreneurial experience, operating expertise, and meaningful capital. With the addition of Ashish Gupta, Prime is looking to further boost its portfolio with early-stage investments in Fintech, SaaS, Enterprise, Healthcare, Education, and Logistics.

The post Dr. Ashish Gupta named as Partner Emeritus by Prime Venture Partners appeared first on Startagist.

The post Ways to Find Investors for Your StartUp | Startup Funding | How to fund your startup appeared first on Startagist.

The company, the shares of which rose to a record $40.90 on Tuesday on the Nasdaq, will have a war chest of more than $500 million with the completion of its latest round of fundraising, allowing it to take on the likes of Booking.com and newer domestic player Paytm among others, reports Economic Times.

“The fundamental belief was to bolster our arsenal, and to have the war chest available,” said Deep Kalra, chief executive of India’s largest travel operator, which is raising the money as it closes an equity financing round for a 9 per cent stake. “The use of the funds, or proceeds, will largely be inorganic.”

Kalra did not specify exactly how much the Gurgaon­headquartered company plans to set aside for potential acquisitions, but it’s expected to have over $500 million on its books after the latest funding round.

Expected to close on May 5, this will see the company raise $165 million from its existing backers, MIH Internet SEA Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of multinational internet and media group Naspers Ltd, and Chinese travel operator Ctrip.com International. Both investors will maintain their current shareholding, which stands at about 11 per cent for Ctrip and 43 per cent for MIH Internet.

The company will separately raise an additional $165 million through a private placement, under the terms of which it will issue about 4.5 million ordinary shares at $36 apiece.

Morgan Stanley India is acting as sole placement agent for the transaction, it said, without disclosing the identity of the investors. MIH Internet SEA had made a pro rata cash infusion of $82.8 million in MakeMyTrip in February, bringing the total cash and cash equivalents and term deposits of the company to an estimated $236.6 million as down 4.9 per cent, on the Nasdaq on Wednesday morning local time for a market capitalisation of $3.49 billion.

On the prowl

“We want to have a good enough kitty that allows us the flexibility to look at inorganic opportunities,” Kalra said. “We’re still in a scenario, where we are investing in the hotel’s space. Like I have said before, it’s not going to flip overnight, and we have to make sure that we have the fire power to do what it takes, to not only maintain leadership but grow it.”

Kalra engineered the largest M&A deal in the Indian internet space last year by merging his company with closest rival Ibibo Group. MakeMyTrip’s revenue from its hotels and standalone basis, contributing almost 67 per cent to overall revenue for the three months period.

The company is believed to be in talks with a number of ventures for potential investments and outright acquisitions. Last week, The Times of India reported that the Nasdaq­listed company was in talks to invest in smaller rival, online budget hotel operator FabHotels. This interest comes as MakeMyTrip has realised that building a good supply of hotels rooms is important for the business.

“In India, the challenge is not in terms of discovery of hotels, but the quality. That is why the hotels business can be built the way overseas players have built it,” said an investor briefed on the matter.

Global players check in

This comes as global travel operators such as Expedia and Priceline Group­backed Booking.com have set up shop in the country and are rapidly expanding their bouquet of services across the country. Apart from global players, local operators such as Oyo Rooms and Treebo Hotels have established a strong presence in the budget hotels space.

Newer entrants, such as Alibaba Group­backed Paytm have allocated a significant amount of cash to grow its travel business. In March, media reports stated that One97 Communications, which operates Paytm, had earmarked.`300 crore to ramp up its travel marketplace, while also expanding its team to more than 250 over the next twoquarters. “This (market) won’t become a bed of roses overnight,” Kalra said. “There will always be players, Indian or international, throwing their hat in, and hoping to get a piece of this very lucrative pie.”

After the merger with Ibibo Group, MakeMyTrip has also outlined aggressive plans to establish its dominance in the budget hotel segment. The online travel market is expected to grow from $11 billion in FY16 to $18.9 billion by FY20, according to an October 2015 Goldman Sachs report.

In the space, hotel bookings earn 15­20 per cent commission while air travel gets 6 per cent, making hotels a much more profitable proposition. In the last two years, action has shifted to this market.

In an earlier conversation, MakeMyTrip India chief executive Rajesh Magow had said that the company was forecasting up to 75 per cent of its overall top line to come from the hotels and packages segment over the next three to four years.

The post MakeMyTrip is ready to raise $330 million funding appeared first on Startagist.

Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) & IoT-focused early-stage venture fund pi Ventures announced the first close of their maiden fund at $13 million.

pi Ventures, a $30 million fund, is expected to make the final close within this year. Its Limited Partners (LPs) include SIDBI, India’s top lender for small businesses; prominent family offices from the US, Canada, Singapore and India; and leading entrepreneurs like Mohandas Pai, Binny Bansal, Deep Kalra, Sanjeev Bikchandani and Bhupen Shah, among others.

Co-founded by Manish Singhal and Umakant Soni, pi Ventures invests in early-stage startups that focus on solving problems in healthcare, logistics, retail, fintech and enterprise sectors using AI, ML and IoT. The VC fund plans to invest in 18-20 startups from this fund over the next three to four years.

Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, pi Ventures, said: “India is the dark horse in the AI race given it has lot of data, brilliant data science talent and early adoption environment due to broken processes and we are happy to play a part in helping India leapfrog with AI. We are thankful to our early backers, investors and founders who have chosen to work with us. We are very excited to play a role in building a strong AI based product ecosystem in India.”

pi Ventures has made three investments so far in the healthcare and energy-efficiency space, namely SigTuple, Zenatix and ten3T.

SigTuple is in the medical diagnostic space and is creating a deep learning-driven, cloud-based solution for detection of abnormalities and trends in medical data, for blood diagnosis.

Zenatix is a data-driven energy efficiency company that uses advanced machine learning based models and delivers 10-30% energy efficiency to large commercial consumers of electricity along with predictive insights to prevent downtown.

ten3T is in continuous monitoring of medical data like ECG in real time through its own smart patches to enable mobile ICU for smaller hospitals.

The VC firm was started in mid2016 by Singhal and Umakant Soni, both come with rich experience in setting up, building and scaling companies. Manish was co-founder & CEO at LetsVenture and a prominent angel investor. He has rich product experience having worked with Sling Media, Ittiam Systems, and Motorola.

Soni was Director India, Science Inc & Co-founder of one of the first AI BOT company out of India, called Vimagino

The post Bangalore VC fund pi Ventures announces first close of maiden fund at $13M appeared first on Startagist.

The Series A-oriented fund, which aims to make 18 to 20 investments, aims to make the final close by the end of this year, according to a statement.

Stellaris was launched by Ritesh Banglani, Alok Goyal and, Rahul Chowdhri — all former Partners at Bangalore-based VC fund Helion Venture Partners.

It mainly looks to invest in startups solving India-specific problems, as well as global software products from India. The fund’s key investment areas are local language online services, technology-led financial inclusion, supply chain networks, vertical machine learning applications, and global SaaS businesses.

Stellaris has made two investments so far: B2B e-commerce marketplace Wydr and an undisclosed startup.

The company’s Limited Partners are financial institutions, corporates, entrepreneurs and family offices in the US, Europe and Asia.

Stellaris has offices in Bangalore and Delhi NCR.

Said Banglani: “We have assembled a strong syndicate of Limited Partners for our first fund. Indian tech companies are set to create US$500 billion of value over the next decade, and our fund gives its investors the opportunity to participate in this value creation.”

Stellaris has also created a network of more than 50 successful entrepreneurs and business professionals in India and abroad, who work closely with the partnership to help identify promising investments, advise the portfolio and selectively co-invest with the fund. The names include TaxiForSure Co-founders Aprameya R and Raghunandan G, Indify founder Alok Mittal, Capillary Technologies Founder Aneesh Reddy; as well as investors and business leaders like Kanwaljit Singh, Founder of Helion and Fireside Ventures, and Neeraj Agarwal, India Head of the Boston Consulting Group.

The post India gets a new VC fund Stellaris Venture Partners appeared first on Startagist.

pi Ventures, an early-stage VC fund launched by veteran investor and serial entrepreneur Manish Singhal, is looking to invest in 12-24 startups from India from the current fund.
With a corpus of U$30 million, pi Ventures is mainly looking for opportunities in the Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and Internet of Things (IoT) sectors, Singhal said in a interview with Startagist.com.

pi Ventures has already invested in ten3T — a startup that builds wearable medical devices that collects and integrates medical grade data in real time. It has also committed to one more startup. It invests between US$100,000 and US$1 million each based on various factors.

“While there are many VC investors in the technology space, there is no specialised funds in AI, ML and IoT. Existing VCs are hesitant to invest in these areas, as they don’t understand the space. The team behind pi Ventures have founded startups in these areas and so understanding comes naturally to us,” he said.

According to him, pi Ventures is India’s first Applied Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning & IoT focused fund. The VC firm focuses on healthcare, logistics, retail, fintech and enterprise sectors. It is backed by some of the leading entrepreneurs globally.
With over 24 years’ experience in building and investing in startups, Singhal has been active in the Indian startup ecosystem. He is also the co-founder of LetsVenture, one of the leading online deal-making platforms in India. He later quit LetsVenture due to the differences with other co-founders.

Before LetsVenture, he was the India head of Sling Media, a Silicon Valley-based consumer electronic startup. Singhal has invested in over a dozen startups in his personal capacity.

AI to change the landscape of India’s healthcare space

Singhal also said that AI and ML can bring drastic change to the healthcare, fintech and logistics industries in India. AI has already made its way into the consumer Internet space and it is expected to play much bigger roles in other industries.

“I think healthcare is going to greatly benefit from AI and it can democratise the healthcare access in the country,” he added. “As you already know, the doctor-patient ratio in India is very low. We can improve healthcare by building more intelligent system, so that doctors will be able to remotely monitor patients. It offloads the doctor from meeting patients in person, and thus you can save more people with fewer doctors,” he said.

He added that AI and machine learning technologies can also make the diagnostic system much easier and more automated — thus more people get access to healthcare.

“Logistics also stands to get the benefits of AI in future. As you know most logistics companies spend a huge chunk of their budget on the roads due to the inefficient infrastructure. AI-driven logistics solutions can update you about the traffic congestion and tells you what to do and what not,” he said.

The post pi Ventures to invest in 18-24 IoT and AI startups in India: Manish Singhal appeared first on Startagist.

The year 2016 might not have been a big one for large scale funding, but there hasn’t been much of a roadblock for early-stage funding deals, which continue to ride the startup wave. According to data analytics firm Venture Intelligence, there were 107 funding deals this year, almost at par with last year’s figure of 117 deals, for investments within $1 million.

The top deals in this category were raised by Bengaluru-based self-publishing platform Pratilipi which raised $925,000 in seed funding from Nexus Venture Partners,and others, this June.

The trend changed as the deal size increased. For instance, funding rounds between $1 million and $10 million saw a drop from 205 deals last year to 170 deals this year. The big ticket funding rounds of more than $10 million saw only 56 funding rounds this year, compared to last year’s 93.

Parag Dhol, managing director at Inventus Capital Partners, said that 2016 was a good year barring the big deals. “Indian economy is big enough to support several smaller early stage deals whereas it is not big enough to support several above $100 million deals,” he said.

Dhol added that while the big private equity funds or hedge funds have retreated, the interest of small Japanese funds and the Chinese tech companies supporting several Indian startups make him hopeful of the ecosystem doing well. “They have the money and the right intent. Even Softbank, despite the setbacks, has made the right noises,” he said.

NoBroker, a Bengaluru-based home rental platform, was one of the top companies to raise the maximum funding in the $10-50 million category. The company, which raised its initial funding in 2014, had to face a lot more heat this year when it raised two separate funding rounds of $7 million and $10 million each from two different investors.

“The funding environment has been very tough. When you look at the consumer startup space, many have shut shop that has made investors all the more cautious. Investors are focusing unit economics and revenue generation, hence the funding discussion cycles were elongated. Since we had overseas investors on board who wanted to get an understanding of the Indian perspective, the discussion to deal closure took 3-4 months,” says ‘NoBroker’ co-founder Amit Agarwal.

Karthik Reddy, managing partner, Blume Ventures, said that while the early stage deals not slowing down is an encouraging sign, lack of deals at the series A (first substantial institutional funding) stage might choke a few startups. “It has been a perpetual problem in India’s startup ecosystem and we have seen this not changing in the last five years. Either the startups shut down or they are forced to get acquired.”

The VC firm was one of the top five active investors of 2016, according to another data analytics company Tracxn. Reddy added that while there is enough capital with venture funds, investments have not happened. The percentage ratio of series A funding has to go up substantially.

The post Indian Startup Wave, No drop in Early-stage Funding deals: Study appeared first on Startagist.

Bangalore-based venture capital firm Exfinity Venture Partners has made the final close of its second fund at Rs.300 crore (approximately $44 million).

According to a press statement, the fund saw participation from CXOs, marquee industrialists, family offices, UHNIs and institutions invested in this .

Exfinity was started in 2013 by industry veterans such as TV Mohandas Pai, Deepak Ghaisas, Girish Paranjpe, Balakrishnan V, and Rajiv Kuchhal. The fund mainly invests in Indian companies with a focus on US market. Its preferred verticals are cloud, analytics, mobility, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and cyber security.

“Our fund thesis of investing in deep tech product/IP companies in the enterprise technology space resonated well with our investors. We received strong commitments from high quality marquee investors. Our deal flow is proprietary and we have strong conviction about the approach we are taking that is manifested in our fund thesis,” said V. Balakrishnan, Chairman, Exfinity.

Shailesh Ghorpade, Managing Partner and CIO said: “Exfinity works closely with the portfolio companies in bringing to bear its network and perspectives on strategy, organisation design, go-to-market decisions, capital raising, etc.,which entrepreneurs appreciate.”

The post Bangalore-based Exfinity Ventures closes second fund at $44M appeared first on Startagist.