The Venture Intelligence Blog

Serial entrepreneur-couple K Ganesh and Meena have acquired Bangalore-based offline design firm Bello Interiors Pvt Ltd and rebranded it as HomeLane, an online marketplace for fixed furniture. The husband-wife duo have brought in Srikanth Iyer, ex-CEO of Pearson India and founder of Edurite, and Rama Harinath, ex-senior management member at TutorVista as co-founders.  HomeLane will be selling furniture goods such as entertainment units, wardrobes, kitchen units, study tables, and shoe racks among other items. Additionally, it will also offer customization, help in planning the interiors, etc. The company claims it will deliver products within 4 weeks, and provide 3-year manufacturer warranty. HomeLane has launched operations in Bangalore and plans to expand to 7 more cities in a year’s time.  Source: MediaNama Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A...

Former India Equity Partners (IEP) professionals have launched a new India-focused PE firm Carpediem Capital. Arvind Nair (formerly Operating Partner at IEP) is the Chairman of the new firm while Abhishek Sharman (earlier Principal at IEP) is Managing Director. The focus sectors of Carpediem will include consumer products and services, healthcare, consumer finance services, logistics, managed services and education.  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.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Rahul Jain, who co-founded app testing start-up Appurify that was recently acquired by Google, plans to raise $50 million to invest in Indian start-ups. The fund would target start-ups working on IT development tools, IT platforms, Big Data and analytics, mobile and cloud computing.  Source: Deccan Herald 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.

From an Economic Times article titledd "Do PE firms make bad chefs?" citing the problems at Adiga's, Sagar Ratna and Nirula's. Prudent investment metrics back PE's thinking in grabbing pieces of the Rs 1,00,000 crore Indian restaurant industry. The industry is growing at a brisk 20 per cent a year. But, only about one-seventh of the industry is organised, says Technopak Advisors. And even some of that suffers from a hangover of its unorganised past, where cash deals were the norm, where contracts were a matter of spoken word and where much pivoted around the promoter. It was in this complex concoction that restaurant promoters and PE shook hands. Promoters wanted PE capital to grow. And PE came in with the understanding that the path to that growth flowed through processes, standardisation and corporatisation -- essentially, organising the unorganised. A critical factor in this transition is promoter buying. "The promoters should continue to...

The Economic Times recently did a full page roundup. Online version available here 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.

Gurgaon-based Accentium Web, founded by Vivek Pahwa, which operates the product discovery and price comparison portal PriceBag.com, has raised $2 million in angel funding. The funds will primarily be used for PriceBag’s product development and marketing, besides expanding its recently launched automobile site 99Cars and matrimonial site SecondShaadi.com. Pricebag currently focuses on mobiles, tablets, laptops and cameras and plans to add other e-commerce categories by the end of this year.  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.

Santa Clara, CA (USA)-based machine data analytics company Glassbeam , Inc. has received $2 million in additional funding from investors including SRI Capital. SRI capital founder Sashi Reddy has joined the company’s board. The company has also added well known NRI entrepreneur Kumar Malavalli as its Chief Strategy Officer. Glassbeam’s cloud-based analytics platform is designed to organize and analyze multi-structured data, delivering product and customer intelligence for companies including IBM, HDS, Aruba Networks and Meru Networks. The new funding will be used to refine patentable Internet of Things (IoT) platform – Glassbeam SCALAR, built to handle the high volume and variety of incoming data streams.  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: I...

Pitney Bowes has announced 8 startups that will join Pitney Bowes Accelerator program in India. The 8 startups are:  RetailNav, a solution for retail shopping with unique in-store location-based analytics.  Audianz, a location-based advertising platform.  Heuristics, a GPS-based vehicle tracking system (VTS) and mobile-based personnel tracking solutions.  Yo-app, an app that integrates social circles with a discovery platform.  Ideata Analytics, an integrated data intelligence platform to help users perform information discovery.  Teritree, a customer experience management platform. BrownTape, a single-click multi-platform solution for ecommerce management. Tagalys, a solution that provides intelligent heuristic search. Selected startups will have access to Pitney Bowes’ software, application programming interfaces (APIs) and data for the duration of the program.  Source: Nextbigwhat.com Venture Intelligence is ...

Mumbai-based start-up TinyOwl Technology Pvt Ltd , which offers location-based mobile application for ordering food, has raised $3 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital India and Nexus Ventures. The app, currently available in Mumbai's suburbs, can detect the users' locations and show restaurants in their vicinity. It offers both card and cash-on-delivery payment options to customers.  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.

By Arun Natarajan At the dawn of 2014, ad industry executive Ramesh Srivats had jokingly predicted : Flipkart will get a few hundred million dollars from VCs in March, July, and maybe November. With Flipkart raising $1000 million in July to add to the $210 million raised in May and spending (a reported) $300 million on Myntra.com in April, I wonder if Srivats was joking at all. And, if not, what numbers Flipkart will spring in November. The billion dollar deal making it to front pages of mainstream newspapers along with new Whatsapp/Airbnb/Uber triggered waves from Silicon Valley, makes an (unfortunately) old timer like me wonder if “I have seen this movie before”. Flashback The star deal of the 2000-2001 era was of course Sify’s acquisition of content portal IndiaWorld for about INR 500 crore (small change by today’s billion dollar standards but “eye popping” was the descriptor used for it in those days). That “mega” acquisition was promptly followed by companie...

SEAF India has invested in Kolkata based QSR firm, Guha Roy Food Joint & Hotel Private Limited, which operates the biryani QSR chain ‘ Only Alibaba ’ and fried chicken brand ‘Baked & Fried’. Indus Advisors acted as the sole financial advisor to the company. Only Alibaba offers a wide variety of Mughlai & Indian cuisine; while Baked & Fried’s offerings include burgers, fries, fried chicken, sandwiches. The company currently runs 22 Only Alibaba outlets and 3 Baked & Fried outlets. The funding will be utilized for expanding the two outlets - both in and out of Kolkata.  From the Venture Intelligence PE Deal database: SEAF India via SEAF India Agribusiness International Fund and SEAF India Investment Trust has acquired a 28.03% stake in Guha Roy Food Joint & Hotel. (Subscribers to the database can login to view the valuation, deal structuring and other transaction details.) Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private...

Delhi-based PressPlay Entertainment has raised a $500k angel round to expand its in-seat entertainment for travelers. PressPlay rents devices to passengers to view content during the journey, and has developed a means to attach the device to the seatback to ensure security. Before the bus leaves, a PressPlay operator pitches the product, and then attaches the device prior to departure. The cost to users is Rs.100 for a five hour journey, and has served over 25,000 users in 8 cities. The startup, which has nearly 80 employees currently, has deals with games and movie studios. It currently has 30 movies, 1,000 songs, 10 documentaries and cartoons loaded on each tablet, with a total of 1,000 tablets in circulation.  Source: Tnooz   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...

Boond Engineering & Development has raised Series A equity investment from a clutch of impact investors including Opes Impact Fund , Rianta Capital and Sumantra Roy. Boond distributes and installs small solar systems in rural areas not served by the electricity grid in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. It assists customers in accessing technologically appropriate products at affordable prices.  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.

Investment banking and family business advisory firm Kin Advisory has invested in two Bangalore-based companies - ft2acres and HEd Ex - via its proprietary seed fund. While ft2acres is an real estate-focused advisory firm, while HEd Ex is a college management company that partners with owners for turning around underutilized assets.  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 FlipClass has raised Rs 1.5 crore from a clutch of investors led by Hareesh Ramanna, founder of Singapore based BlueCap Mobile Holdings. Flipclass is an online portal that connects parents seeking private coaching for their wards with tutors and has raised the funding on deal making site LetsVenture. FlipClass has about 1000 tutors and 500 students in Bangalore.  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.

Bangalore-based Synup, a year-old-company that helps small businesses manage their online presence, has raised $500,000 (Rs. 3 crore) in a round led by Bangalore-based start-up incubator AngelPrime to boost marketing and strengthen its technology. Synup has roped in a few hundred paying customers in Canada and the US. Synup works with both digital agencies as well as businesses directly to manage their listings on over 200 websites, track customer reviews and analyse rankings on different search engines. The direct customers are local mom and pop businesses, restaurants, spas and other brick-and-mortar firms.  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.

Former Infosys board members TV Mohandas Pai and V Balakrishnan have topped up their VC fund Exfinity by Rs 25 crore, taking the total corpus to Rs 125 crore. The fund had announced the closure of Rs 100 crore in June 2014, and the green shoe option of Rs 25 crore was open for subscription. Exfinity also has plans to launch a second fund with a corpus of Rs 125-130 crore, which is likely to be sector-agnostic.  Source: Financial Express 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.

Noida-based TLabs Accelerator, a part of the Times Group, has graduated its fifth batch of startups. The seven graduating startups received an investment of about INR 10 lakh each. The startups included Ghar360, FashUpp, Parallel Dots, Vidgyor, Spayee, Take Zero and Greedy Game. Besides this batch, TLabs has graduated about 23 startups till now that have raised an aggregate of $3 million in investments.  Delhi-based Parallel Dots provides a software to showcase most-relevant content in a newspaper's archive with an automated timeline tool for online news reading. Bangalore-based startup Ghar360 provides a solution for homeowners and builders to customise the kind of home they want by simple drag and drop operations on its website. Take Zero aims to provide a LinkedIn kind of service for performing artists and models, while Vidgyor provides targeted ad technologies for live video streaming online. Spayee is an eBook and digital course distribution platform with enhanced socia...

Former Times Internet CEO Rishi Khiani’s incubation firm AntFarm has raised Series A funding from Bay Capital and Hausela Capital Partners. It plans to use this investment to build new early stage ventures in the fitness, hyperlocal and mobile segments, grow upcoming businesses in the travel segment and strengthen its existing portfolio companies. Launched in November 2012, AntFarm currently operates businesses like fashion label Stylista.com, travel portal Arrive.com and native advertising business Fork Media. The company had raised angel investment from BCCL (Times of India Group) CEO Ravi Dhariwal and former Tech Mahindra CEO Sanjay Kalra. Source: MediaNama     Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials,...

Bangalore-based education start-up, SmartOn has been selected to TechStars Kaplan Global Edtech Accelerator (3 months programme) for 2014. SmartOn, as part of the programme, will receive $20k from Techstars in return for equity and an option for a $150k convertible debt note from Kaplan. SmartOn teaches “new economy skills” in areas such as coding, data science, social media and design. Earlier, another Indian startup, MartMobi had made it to Techstars accelerator. MartMobi offers a platform for brands to create mobile sites and apps for e-commerce stores. 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 vie...

Bangalore-based Zen Lefin, which owns and operates online SME lending platform Capital Float, has raised INR 6 crore from SAIF Partners. The funding is the latest tranche of round which began with Aspada Investment investing INR 12 crore in June. The latest round takes the total amount raised by Capital Float to INR 24 crore. The company is looking to raise INR 20 crore by the end of the year as well as expand to Pune, Chennai and Ahmedabad.   Founded in October last year by Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Sashank Rishyasringa and Gokaldas Exports promoter family member Gaurav Hinduja, Capital Float provides short-term working capital loans to SMEs across three sectors: B2B service providers, small manuf...

Khaitan & Co., Amarchand & Mangaldas complete the Top 3 Most Active Advisors list   AZB & Partners topped the Venture Intelligence League Tables for Most Active Legal Advisors to M&A transactions for the first six months of 2014 advising 19 qualifying deals (earning 72 points) followed by Khaitan & Co. which advised 17 deals (58 points) and Amarchand & Mangaldas which advised 12 deals (42 points). Other legal advisors who had advised a significant number of M&A deals during H1-2014 included Trilegal (Seven deals, 28 points), ALMT Legal (Six deals, 22 points) and HSA Advocates (Six deals, 20 points). The Venture Intelligence League Tables, the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on volume of Private Equity and M&A transactions (combined with credits based on fulfilment of criteria) advised by Transaction and Legal Advisory firms. AZB advised M&A deals during the period included ...

Kotak, I-Sec, MAPE and Singhi complete the Top 5 for pure financial advisory Ernst & Young has topped the Venture Intelligence Most Active Transaction Advisor for Mergers & Acquisitions League Table for the first six months of 2014. The firm advised six qualifying deals (fetching it 22 points) followed by Kotak Investment Banking which advised four deals (16 points). ICICI Securities , MAPE and Singhi Advisors , shared the third spot for advising two deals each (8 points) in pure financial advisory roles during H1’14. The Venture Intelligence League Tables, the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on volume of PE and M&A transactions (combined with credits based on fulfilment of criteria) advised by Transaction and Legal Advisory firms. Including due diligence and related advisory activities, Ernst & Young advised 21 deals during the period including Greenko Energies’ $104-M acquisition of Lanco Infr...

ALMT Legal, IndusLaw complete the Top 3 Most Active Advisors List AZB & Partners has retained its status as the Most Active Legal Advisor for Private Equity transactions during the first six months of 2014. According to the Venture Intelligence League Tables, AZB advised 22 qualifying deals (earning 88 points) during H1 2014, followed by ALMT Legal which advised 17 deals (68 points); IndusLaw which advised 15 deals (60 points) and K Law with 12 deals (48 points). The Venture Intelligence League Tables, the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on volume of PE and M&A transactions (combined with credits based on fulfilment of criteria) advised by Transaction and Legal Advisory firms. AZB advised deals during H1 2014 included Warburg Pincus' $150 million investment in Laurus Labs and Temasek’s investment in the $100-M round raised by Snapdeal in May-14 . Transactions advised by ALMT Legal included Samara Capit...

So informs Shyam Kamadolli of Fidelity's Private Equity arm in his blog post titled "India’s Internet – the second gold rush". Extracts: Last week, on one of the hottest afternoons in New York City this summer, I found myself cooling off in a swanky Midtown bar with an  investment banker.  Within minutes our conversation turned to reports of frenzied interest among large institutional investors in India’s growing online businesses.    I cracked a smile as I had just heard the same thing earlier in the day from two other investors: a sovereign wealth fund and a mutual fund manager.  This is only amusing because a year ago nobody would have been discussing an Indian Internet business ensconced in the glass and steel towers of Manhattan or San Francisco. ...My thesis on India’s Internet space has not changed since I first started investing in the country in 2008 – optimistic about the long haul but cautious in the near term.  ...Most of the larger dea...

Ernst & Young is the Most Active Advisor inclusive of due diligence & other services Continuing its strong run from the previous year, Unitus Capital topped the Venture Intelligence League Tables for Most Active Transaction Advisor (Private Equity) during the first six months of 2014. The firm acted as financial advisor to eight qualifying PE investments during the period (notching up 32 points). Among the transactions advised by Unitus were the $13-M investment by Fidelity Growth Partners and existing investor Aavishkaar in dairy firm Milk Mantra and Norwegian Microfinance Initiative’s investment in microfinance firm Satin Creditcare Network . The Venture Intelligence League Tables, the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on volume of PE and M&A transactions (combined with credits based on fulfillment of criteria) advised by Transaction and Legal Advisory firms. Ernst & Young, with seven deals (28 p...