The Venture Intelligence Blog

Venture Intelligence spoke to Mukesh Bubna , Founder & CEO of Peer to Peer (P2P) lending firm Monexo's on his take on the impact of the new RBI regulations on the sector and the expectations going forward. Venture Intelligence: What was your initial reaction to the recently introduced RBI regulations on P2P? Mukesh Bubna : RBI ushering P2P platforms as a new class of NBFCs is a welcome move that provides the entire sector increased credibility and reinforces the potential of a marketplace approach to credit delivery. RBI’s insistence on a business continuity plan in case of platform shut down, ‘Fit and proper criteria’ for promoter team are all steps that will boost confidence of platform lenders. Despite the existence of a few grey areas around definitional constructs and prudential caps on participants’ exposure, the framework does enough to lend clarity on key issues surrounding operational requirements, role of the P2P platform as an intermediary and man...

With global investors such as Tiger Global and SoftBank vacating the sub-$100 million Late Stage Technology segment - that they were aggressively active during 2014-15 - the Indian Venture Capital ecosystem clearly needs to fill this yawning gap. In the absence of new funds being raised specifically for this segment, one potential way is for Private Equity firms to "come down" from their typical sweet spot (in terms of both deal values and level of company maturity). The "old India hands" in the PE segment like Warburg Pincus and Temasek have indeed started to dabble in Late Stage Tech investing in the last couple of years. Between them, these firms have invested into companies like Rivigo, Capillary Technologies, CarTrade.com and Manthan Systems. However, given their mandate to invest across multiple sectors, these firms cannot overexpose themselves to just one sector. The other option is for some of the Early Stage technology investors to “go up” the de...

Even as 2017 witnesses a shrinking of overall Early Stage Venture Capital activity, WaterBridge Ventures – a new early stage focused firm - has notched up as many as six investments already during the year. In an interview to Venture Intelligence, Manish Kheterpal , WaterBridge’s Founder & Managing Partner– an IIT-Delhi & Stanford alum who had worked earlier at Providence Equity Partners, Actis Capital and Rho Capital Partners - expands on the firm’s fund raising experience and investment outlook. Venture Intelligence: You had announced a first close of your INR 100 Cr ($15 M) fund in mid 2016 with about $5 M (INR 33 Cr). How was the fund raising experience?  Manish Kheterpal: We were fortunate to launch the fund in 2016 without the need for an anchor investor. That helped us get our team, processes and market presence sorted, and also make some early investments while being highly selective about our portfolio. Since we are building a curated portfolio of...

After focusing substantially on exits in 2010 (when it successfully exited its investments in Mahindra Finance and ABG Shipyard), StanChart PE has announced four new investments in the first half of 2011 (in GMR Airports, Bush Foods, Privi Organics and Innoventive Industries). Three of its other portfolio companies – Endurance Technologies, Powerica and Intergloble Technology - are on the IPO path. Venture Intelligence spoke to Nainesh Jaisingh, Managing Director of Standard Chartered Private Equity, who heads the bank’s proprietary PE investments team in India on the firm’s recent moves and his views on the current PE investing landscape in India. This interview first appeared in the latest issue of the Venture Intelligence India Private Equity Roundup Report . Venture Intelligence: In 2010, StanChart PE announced only one investment - the syndicated $217-M round in Coffee Day Resorts – but, this year, you have already announced four new ones. What’s changed in your outlook? Nainesh ...

Venture Intelligence spoke to Mohan Kumar, Executive Director, Norwest Venture Partners India, on the firm’s recent investments in the VC segment. Kumar, who had earlier worked for over 18 years at companies like Motorola and Texas Instruments, has led NVP's recent investments into medical devices firm Perfint Healthcare, tablet PC-based education services firm iProf and China-headquartered Smartphones maker Borqs. This interview first appeared in the latest issue of the Venture Intelligence India Venture Capital Report . Venture Intelligence: In recent months, we’ve noticed that Norwest is once again active in the VC segment with investments into companies like iProf, Komli, Quikr and Perfint. What is driving this? Mohan Kumar: NVP’s DNA has always been venture type deals. About 2 years back we had added two segments - financial services and infrastructure - where we started doing late stage deal with large size cheques. In Technology, E-Commerce, Med tech, Healthcare and Educati...

Venture Intelligence recently spoke to Vishakha Mulye, Managing Director & CEO of ICICI Venture Funds, on the firm’s recent investments and strategy going ahead. This interview first appeared in the latest issue of the Venture Intelligence India Private Equity Roundup Report . Venture Intelligence: In 2011, you have announced two significant-sized investments – in restaurants chain Devyani International and vocational education firm TeamLease Services. Can you tell us about them? Vishakha Mulye: Both were proprietary deals. Devyani (which runs KFC, Pizza Hut and Costa Coffee chains in various parts of India) was the outcome of existing relationships and our liking for the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) space. As India’s GDP continues to grow, our belief is that the QSR kind of businesses - which I term as a New Generation businesses - will also witness a tremendous growth. In other countries, these kinds of businesses have shown 30-40% growth over a long period of time and our bel...

Raja Kumar, Founder & CEO of Ascent Capital The growth capital focused PE firm Ascent Capital, recently invested Rs.150 crore in Hyderabad-based IVRCL Assets & Holdings. Earlier in 2010, Ascent had co-invested (with Argonaut and IDFC) into the energy arm of the GMR Group. Venture Intelligence spoke to Raja Kumar, Founder & CEO of Ascent Capital , about the latest investments and other developments at the Bangalore-headquartered firm. Venture Intelligence: Can you tell us how the IVRCL Assets investment came about and what attracted you to the company? Raja Kumar: Our internal research flagged water and road infrastructure assets as an attractive area to invest in during the fund life of our current fund. With the streamlining of regulations and good visibility of the upcoming road pipeline, the road segment is poised to grow. Water infrastructure is another promising area given the demographics of India. We dug deeper into these sectors and identified players whom we belie...

Venture Intelligence recently spoke to Mintoo Bhandari who heads global PE firm Apollo's India subsidiary in Mumbai. Apollo recently consummated its first PE investment in India - a $100 million investment in DTH operator, DishTV. Prior to joining Apollo in the US (in 2006), Bhandari was Managing Director of India-focused private equity firm, The View Group. Interestingly, Apollo – when it comes to PE investments - has chosen to invest earlier in India than in China. (This interview was first published in the Jan-Mar 2010 issue of the Venture Intelligence India Roundup Private Equity report.) Venture Intelligence: Can you tell us how the DishTV investment came about and what attracted you to the company? Mintoo Bhandari: There were both macro and situation specific reasons why we found DishTV interesting. On the macro thesis: we believe India is perhaps the most attractive media market in the world today. India is a producer of significant unique content and there is voracious...

One of the more interesting start-ups to receive VC funding this year has been Dhama Apparel Innovations which provides apparel with variable heating / cooling to people living and working in difficult climatic environments. N. Sriram of Venture Intelligence recently spoke with Kranthi Kiran Vistakula , Dhama’s Founder & CEO who is an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Venture Intelligence: You have a biotech and engineering background from MIT. Why did you switch to doing an apparel start-up? Kranthi Vistakula: While living in Boston (USA), the weather was either cold or hot…I never felt comfortable. Since I could not find any functional apparel in the market, I started developing one for my use. That is how the whole idea started. VI: Dhama is now targeting to sell temperature-controlled apparel to defense forces. Don’t soldiers have these kinds of apparels already? KV: They do have. But they are very heavy. Our apparel weighs around 1 kg. The apparel soldi...