The Venture Intelligence Blog

From the Business Today cover story profile of the Bajaj Auto Managing Director in the context of Bajaj Auto's plans to launch a controversial Quadricyle: The company had already proved itself to be an outlier by not taking on an equity partner who would feed it technology. Each of its rivals had one. Hero and Kinetic had Honda, TVS had Suzuki, Escorts had Yamaha and LML had Piaggio. Bajaj had Kawasaki, but only as a technology supplier, with no equity. "Not having an equity partner that provided the technology, such as Honda for Hero, gave us the opportunity to learn. What we got was technical drawings from Kawasaki. The process, the why and the how, and the manufacturing were not transferred completely from Kawasaki. We made mistakes, but we learned," says Joe.... By the turn of the century, Bajaj began to become self-reliant in technology. The last motorcycle it built with Kawasaki's technology was the Eliminator in 1999. ...The well wishers of In...

From a Business Today article on the phenomenon : Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Information risk management services company, Aujas Networks has raised Series B funding from Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF), IvyCap Ventures and existing investor IDG Ventures India. Girish Gupta of RVCF and Vikram Gupta of IvyCap Ventures will join the company’s board. The current investment will be used to fuel organic growth.  Aujas, founded in 2008 was incubated by IDG ventures through an Entrepreneur in Residence program. The company now has presence in India, Middle East and the United States and serves customers in the banking and telecom sector. Aujas also works with the government on cyber security. Nearly half of the company’s business comes from the United States and Middle East. Aujas currently employs 180 people.  Source: Press Release   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here ...

Chennai-based online customer support and helpdesk solution company Freshdesk has raised $6.99 million from venture capital firm Accel Partners and Tiger Global in a fresh round of funding. From the Venture Intelligence PE Deal database: In November 2011, Accel India had invested $1 million and in April 2012 Tiger Global and Accel India had invested $5 million in Freshdesk  Source: NextBigWhat.com   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Agri-business focused Investment firm Omnivore Partners has bought a minority stake in Eruvaka Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a Vijayawada-based maker of diagnostic equipment for aquaculture farmers. Eruvaka Technologies, founded last year, has developed a solar-powered product that integrates sensors, mobile connectivity and decision-making tools to monitor aquatic farms. The product allows shrimp and fish farmers to monitor their ponds and remotely control automated equipment such as aerators and feeders thus reducing cultivation risk.  Source: Mint Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Education start-ups Experifun and Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions have been selected for seed funding in the inaugural ‘Edupreneurs’ programme, a partnership of Pearson and Village Capital.  Led by a team of alumni from the IIT and IIM (A), Experifun helps science teachers bring their subject to life by providing them with kits and activities to conduct classroom experiments. Designed in its R&D lab in Bangalore, Experifun products are patentable, affordable and suited to both urban and rural schools.  Sudiksha operates pre-schools in underprivileged urban neighbourhoods through an innovative model that recruits local women to run branches under an incentivised profit sharing scheme.  Source: Newswiretoday.com   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including t...

Gland Pharma Limited ("Company" or "Gland Pharma"), a leading Indian pure-play generic injectable pharmaceutical products company, today announced an agreement under which KKR, a leading global investment firm, will acquire a minority stake in the Company for approximately US$200 million, including KKR's acquisition of the entire stake held by Evolvence India Life Sciences Fund ("EILSF"), an existing private equity investor in Gland Pharma.  Established in 1978 and based in Hyderabad, Gland Pharma develops and manufactures generic injectables primarily for the US market, and also for India and other semi-regulated markets. In 2003, Gland Pharma was the first company in India to get US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for pharmaceutical liquid injectable products. Gland Pharma has also pioneered pre-filled syringe technology in India and exports products in this format to the US market. Having pioneered Heparin technology in India, Glan...

Silicon Valley Bank has released the India Halo report providing a snapshot of investments made by angel groups in India from 2005 to 2012. The report shows that the Median Angel Round Size in India is Rs.1.52 crore (compared to about Rs.3.72 crore in the US). The Pre-Money Valuations in pre-Series A rounds is Rs.10 crore in India (compared to Rs.15.5 crore in the US). The report also provides a split up of angel investments by City (Mumbai and Bangalore accounting for about a quarter share of the pie each) and by sector (IT & ITES and Telecom/Mobile related sector accounting for more than 65% of the pie; followed by Manufacturing at 9%, Education at 7.9% and Life Sciences at 7.3% )  Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most ...

In the context of online restaurants review service Zomato raising about $20M with revenues of less than $2M, seed investment specialist Anand Lunia has a quora post on how corporate VCs (like Naukri, One97, etc) have more " courage, belief and patience" to take such leaps of faith than pure commercial VCs. Extract: That a large proportion of Consumer Internet companies, at least in the past, have been funded by Corporate Investors. Perhaps regular VCs have preferred topline first businesses like restaurants, healthcare chains, pharma manufacturing (!). The early stage VCs in India have done a decent job, however, of following these corporate nurtured ventures  with Series B/C investments, in a slightly herd like behaviour (the way everybody queued up recently for a certain on-line fashion co was funny.) ...The operating word for the failed ones was 'revenue'. The operating word for the successful ones was Product and Usage. Revenue is the best strateg...

InOpen Technologies, an education content company incubated in Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), has raised a strategic investment in return for a small minority stake from Japanese education firm Benesse Holdings. Benesse has made this investment from the Benesse Social Investment Facility (BSIF), which invests in companies focused on solving social issues in education, child care and other related fields in emerging Asian countries and Japan. InOpen is the first investee of BSIF. InOpen and Benesse will collaborate to jointly develop products for the global education market, starting with the USA and Japan. Unitus Capital advised the company on this transaction. InOpen is also looking to attract an investment from a financial and/or impact investor.  In August 2011, venture capital firm Ventureast had invested $500,000 in a seed round for a minority stake in InOpen. Co-founded by Rupesh Kumar Shah and Dr Sridhar Iyer in 2009, InOpen's flagship product is ‘Com...

Google India head Rajan Anandan has acquired minority stake in TravelKhana , an online food delivery service for railway passengers. Anandan and associates of Pushpinder Singh, chief executive of New Delhi-based Duronto Technologies Pvt Ltd, which owned and operated TravelKhana, have together invested about Rs 3 crore in Travelkhana. In October, Duronto Technologies had raised an undisclosed amount from Palaash Ventures.  Source: Business Standard   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions , which runs 22 pre-schools in and around Hyderabad, has attracted an investment from US-based First Light Investment. Sudiksha works mostly in slums and among low-income communities with 600-odd students. From the Venture Intelligence Social VC Investments database: In Nov-12, Sudiksha had raised capital from Impact Circle.  Source: Business Standard   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Trivone Digital Services, a digital media and content company backed by Accel Partners, has acquired Bangalore-based content services company Godot Media. Trivone will now use services offered by Godot Media such as article and blog writing, copyright and SEO services, apart from handling social media accounts for clients to expand its offering. Godot is self funded and includes companies such as ING, Sotheyby’s and Slide.ly among others as clients.  Source: MediaNama Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Cross posted from the Entrevista Blog Interview with Ganapathy Subramaniam, Founding-CEO of Bangalore-based semiconductor tech company Cosmic Circuits. (Cosmic was acquired in early 2013 by Silicon Valley-based, Nasdaq-listed electronic design giant Cadence.) The interviewer is fellow entrepreneur Chandu Nair. The Podcast can be downloaded from here . (Use Right Click > Save As to save the file to your desktop) Highlights Reading the Wind How Ganapathy, as part of visiting customers in October 2012, realized that Cosmic Circuits could no longer remain an independent company. (Its customers and partners wanted a strong Number 2 player in the segment to provide a balance to the Number 1 player, Synopsis.)  Making the company Due Diligence ready How Cosmic's decisions to rope in a Big 4 audit firm (just five years into its existence) and go in for an ISO certification, stood it in good stead when it came to due diligence at the time of its acquisition. ...

Kreata Global, a Facebook preferred marketing developer based in UAE, has acquired Flamingos Media, a Digital & Mobile marketing company based at Startup Village, Kochi. Flamingos Media, which has a 6-member team, offers services in the field of Mobile Applications, Facebook Applications, Social Media & Viral Marketing. Source: YourStory Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Boku, Inc., the global leader in carrier billing and cross-platform mobile payments, today announced the acquisition of Mumbai-based direct carrier billing firm, Qubecell. The agreement includes the purchase of all shares in Qubecell. All of Qubecell’s employees will be joining the existing Boku organization with the Founder & CEO of Qubecell, Ranjan R. Reddy, joining as part of the leadership team in Asia. The acquisition of Qubecell provides Boku with direct carrier billing connections with four of the largest carrier networks in India along with a number of key local merchant relationships. Boku is backed by leading Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists including Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Index Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and NEA.   Source: Press Release Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuati...

Hive Technologies, an investment and incubation firm backed by brothers Arihant Patni and Amit Patni, has made its first investment - in Bangalore-based Flutura, which provides data analytics solutions with a special focus on machine to machine communications and also in the oil and gas vertical. Hive offers seed financing of up to Rs 13 crore as well as technology and business support for data analytic start-ups. Source: Economic Times   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Morpheus fund, which had invested INR 42 Cr in the multi-channel virtual retailer TVC Skyshop in August for a stake of 8%, had recently invested additional INR 10 Cr in the company. With the funding, TVC SkyShop has also expanded its footprints in the Middle East region through a pilot project. Samara Capital had invested in TVC Skyshop in 2007 and holds a 22% stake in the company. Source: Iamwire Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Blume Ventures and a few other investors have invested in VoxPopClothing, an e-commerce website that sells limited edition T-shirts related to superheroes. The site, launched in September 2013, is a licensee of character T-shirts for brands like Disney, Marvel, DC Comics and Star Trek. Apart from selling through their own website, the company is also offering t-shirts via ebay. VoxPopClothing is also running contests to crowdsource designs to be later sold on the site.  Source: MediaNama   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Sequoia Capital India is investing over $15 million for a 20% stake in Jaipur-based consumer internet company Girnar Software , which owns internet portals Cardekho, Bikedekho and Pricedekho. Cardekho is focused on creating an experience for consumers buying a new or used car and focused on creating business value to dealers across India. It also facilitates car finance and insurance. Pricedekho and Bikedekho are newer offerings from the Girnar stable. Source: Times of India Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

FabAlley.com, an online fashion brand for women, has raised seed funding from Indian Angel Network. The investment was led by IAN investor members Mohit Goyal and Tushar Singh. Tushar Singh would also be joining the company’s board. Launched in June 2012,  FabAlley offers design-differentiated and fashion clothing and accessories for women. The portal intends to use the investment to add new categories in both apparel and accessories and to increase depth in existing categories. The online fashion brand also plans to use the investment to improve its technology, supply chain capabilities, warehousing and marketing.  Source: Business Line   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsle...

Cross Posted from the Entrevista Blog In this audio interview ("podcast"), Palem Srikanth shares his amazing entrepreneurial journey - from a Stanford educated logistics executive with Hewlett Packard to returning to India and starting a Dosa restaurant chain to the tough lessons from making cross-border acquisitions to the recent sale of the logistics software business (to US Private Equity firm Francisco Partners-backed Kewill) for about Rs.275 crores.   The Podcast can be downloaded from here . (Use Right Click > Save As to save the file to your desktop) Highlights : Importance of Financial Strength in the Enterprise Software space How persistence and investing in technology (to ensure Four Soft's products  were cutting edge)  provided the maximum return - much more than the expensive acquisitions the company made  Managing the confidentiality of the transaction involving a listed company - so that there is no misuse of insider informa...

Mumbai based online crowd funding platform Ketto has raised INR 77 lakh in angel investment from Club ah! and Calcutta Angels. The deal is the first impact investment made by Club ah! investors through ah! impact, its impact investing arm.  Source: NextBigWhat   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

A fund floated by Forum Synergies and Spain's Axon Capital has bought a minority stake in Bangalore-based online food ordering portal, Justeat.in . The company was until now majority owned by UK-based Just Eat Holdings Ltd. Justeat.in, which connects restaurants and consumers, will use the funds to hire engineers and marketing talent to scale up technology and set up operations in Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.  From the Venture Intelligence M&A Deal database: In Jan-11, Just-Eat had made its India entry by acquiring the Indian Angel Network backed HungryZone.  Source: Economic Times Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Social VC Acumen Fund has invested $750,000 in Bangalore-based Asian Health Alliance which owns and operates low cost diagnostic services under the brand name Asian Health Meter. The investment will enable the company to expand its radiology and pathology services using a hub and spoke model. The company expects to run 30 centers by 2016 and plans to conduct nearly three million tests by 2020. Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Mumbai-based ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd which runs online cab booking service, Olacabs , has raised Series B funding from Tiger Global and Matrix Partners India. The fresh funding would be channelized towards market expansion and scaling up technology infrastructure. The company had earlier raised Series A in 2012 from Tiger Global. Source: Nextbigwhat Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Bangalore-based startup ApartmentADDA that provides online software to manage residential complexes has raised funds from a group of Silicon Valley and Indian investors. The angel investors include Bhupen Shah, Sharad Sharma,Raghu Tarra,Vijay Anand and Zaheer Rattonsey.  ApartmentADDA aims to build a network of accountants and facility managers and expand to international markets like Middle East,apart from large Indian cities.It will also use the money to develop technologies for new services like online concierge and appliance servicing. Source: Times of India Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Incights Mobile solutions , a start-up company making voice-based biometric solutions, is raising about Rs 1 crore angel funding. The funds will be used for enhancing its capabilities and marketing.  Source: Financial Chronicle Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Online food and restaurant listings platform Zomato has raised INR 227.6 crore from Sequoia Capital India and existing investor, publicly listed Info Edge, owner of online businesses including Naukri.com. Of this, Info Edge has invested about INR 57 crore by subscribing to convertible preference shares of Zomato Media Private Ltd. The rest, INR 170.6 crore came from Sequoia Capital India. Zomato will use the funds to expand global operations. With the latest investment, the company has now raised a total of $53 million (INR 324 crore). InfoEdge will continue to be the largest shareholder in Zomato with a stake of just over 50%. Zomato earned revenue of INR 11.4 crore in fiscal 2013 and the estimated revenue for this fiscal year is about INR 36 crore. Zomato claims nearly 15 million users visit its website every month and earns about 65% of its revenue from India while the rest comes from overseas. Source: BSE , Economic Times   Venture Intelligence is the leading pro...

Microsoft Ventures has invested in Pune-based Xtremum Solutions, maker of Praxify , a SaaS solution that enables doctors and clinics to manage their clinical practices. It has also invested in Bangalore-based Bookpad that enables embeding of popular document formats like .docx, .pptx, .xlsx & .pdf into application GUI besides offering document editing capabilities.  Source: Yourstory.in   Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Google has invested nearly $3.5 mn in 10 Indian social impact organizations that were picked through a competition. Google Impact Challenge picked four winners who will receive $500,000 and six who will receive $250,000 each. The four who will receive $500,000 are:  Agastya: to launch a network of motorbike science labs to address the lack of science equipment and digital resources for rural children.  Digital Green: to scale a video hub and an online knowledge platform to help farmers gain the agricultural skills they need to lower their costs and increase their productivity.  Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship & Democracy: to create online and mobile apps to connect citizens to their government representatives in urban India.  Social Awareness, Newer Alternatives: to combine solar-powered micro-ionizing water purification and biodigesting technology to improve water and sanitation infrastructure for rural villages.  Source: NextBig...

Ananya Finance for Inclusive Growth Private Ltd, a Non Banking Financial Company (NBFC) promoted by Indian Foundation for Inclusive Growth (IFIG) Trust, has raised INR 18 crore Series A equity capital from WWB ISIS Fund and IDBI Bank. While ISIS has invested INR 9 crore in Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS) of the company, IDBI Bank has invested INR 9 crore via Optionally Convertible Preference Shares (OCPS). Unitus Capital advised the company on this transaction.  Incorporated in 2009, Ananya lends to microfinance institutions. Till date, it has provided assistance of INR 506 crore to 130+ organizations across 17 states and claims to have benefitted more than 5,00,000 poor people. Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's Fi...

The British Government’s Department for International Development (DFID), through its Rs 400 crore (40 million pounds) Samridhi Fund, will invest 4.2 million pounds (Rs 42.38 crore) in Glocal Healthcare System (Rs 24.6 crore), Gramco Infratech (Rs 14.7 crore) and Shikhar Dairy (Rs 1.9 crore). Glocal Healthcare System will use the money to operate a chain of affordable hospitals benefitting 1.2 million rural patients in low-income states by 2020; Gramco Infratech will build agricultural warehouses to provide storage and value added services to more than 3,000 farmers every season in MP; and Shikhar Dairy will set up a professionally managed dairy that will allow 300 landless rural poor to own cows and a dairy in the Jhansi district of UP.  Source: Business Standard Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view...

Manipal Integrated Services, a part of Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG), has acquired Woodstock Ambience, a Bangalore-based provider of gated living for students and young professionals.  Woodstock Ambience has been in operation for over seven years and is built on 2+ acres land. The facility can accommodate over 1,000 people which offers both single and double occupancy options. Its clients include IBM, Infosys, Hewlett-Packard, TCS and Wipro. Source: Business Standard Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India. Click Here to view our products list including the Free Deal Digest Weekly: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.