The Venture Intelligence Blog

Fintech Companies grabbed 26% of all Venture Capital (VC) funding in the quarter ended June 2018 - 24 deals worth $81 million - compared to 11% in the immediate previous quarter. (Health tech investments had grabbed the top spot in Q1 2018.) Investments in Fintech were led by large investments in trade finance and factoring company Drip Capital and SME loan marketplace CoinTribe . Lending startups (12 investments worth $47 million) accounted for 50% of the Fintech investments. Overall, VC firms made 92 investments worth $392 million in Q2’18, data from Venture Intelligence   shows. Investment value increased by more than 20% compared to Q2’17 as well as the immediate previous quarter (which registered investments worth $315 million). In volume (no. of deals) terms, the figure was 12% lower compared to the 104 deals worth $318 million recorded in Q2'17 and flat compared the immediate previous quarter (which registered 95 deals). Note: Venture Capital is defined by V...

South China Morning Post uses Venture Intelligence data to quantify the rising interest of Chinese VC and Strategic Investors for Indian startups. According to venture capital tracker Venture Intelligence, from January 2015 to April this year, several investors including Alibaba and Tencent committed more than US$1.1 billion to Indian start-ups.  ... “We feel India’s internet sector will be the next big market after China; it is a hot area for Chinese investors,” said Eric Shu, a senior manager at Chinese venture capital firm Incapital. “In some ways India promises better potential as a market because it is better connected with the Western world and [Indians] can speak English. We believe many successful internet business models in China can be replicated in India,” added Shu.  ...“India’s huge population, rapidly developing economy, English-speaking labour force, superb information technology and IT sector outsourcing services are the elements that attract us to inv...

Naren Gupta, the highly respected Silicon Valley based founding partner of Indo-US cross-border VC firm Nexus Ventures, has published an article in Forbes India highlighting some areas in which the current crop of Indian startup founders could do better. Extract: Over the last few years, I have failed to see this focus or commitment in many of the new-age company founders or management teams in India. They seem overly focussed on their image in the media, maximising valuations in the next funding rounds, and other short-term bragging rights. Where is the focus on exceptional products and customer satisfaction?   My belief is that today’s even moderately successful Indian entrepreneurs are so distracted that they cannot maniacally focus on building great companies. The baubles that distract them range from angel funding to building fancy bungalows. During my recent visit to Bengaluru, I cringed when I was told that many executives of rapidly growing companies were spending ...