Deal Alert: Blume Ventures invests in social tech firm Kuliza

Bangalore-based Kuliza, a social technology firm with expertise in building web, mobile and social media apps, has received an investment from Blume Ventures. Kuliza will be utilizing the raised funds in further expanding globally and building digital marketing tools. 



Founded in 2006, Kuliza is focused on helping companies leverage technology support in the areas of social software,

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Deal Alert: Samridhi Fund invests Rs.15-Cr in Gramco Infratech

Gramco Infratech Pvt Ltd (Gramco), a rural-focused company that creates infrastructure to support farmers, has raised Rs 15 crore in its first round of equity funding from Samridhi Fund. The funds raised will be used to construct agri-warehouses in Madhya Pradesh and to meet its working capital requirements. Intellecap was the sole financial advisor to the deal. 



The Samridhi Fund has been

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Deal Alert: Mobile Surveys Startup VoxApp Raises Funding from Blume Ventures, Angels

Edited extracts From the  Press Release:

VoxApp, a Delhi-based startup that has developed a platform to enable brands & research companies  undertake consumer feedback studies on the mobile phone, has raised a round of funding from a syndicate of domestic and foreign investors
including Blume Ventures, Narayanan Shadagopan (MD, Pragati India Fund),
Palaash Ventures, Sachin Bhatia (

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Deal Alert: Blume Ventures, angels invest in beauty products e-tailer Purplle

Mumbai-based online beauty and personal care e-tailer Purplle has raised its first round of funding from seed fund Blume Ventures and angel networks Mumbai Angels and The Chennai Angels. The company, founded in early 2012 by Manish Taneja and Rahul Dash, offers personal care products ranging from make-up to electronics from over 400 global brands. 



Source: Economic Times 

 



Venture

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Deal Alert: Kae Capital leads investment in social CRM firm Airwoot

New Delhi-based Airwoot, a startup that helps brands provide customer support on social media, has raised funding from investors led by Kae Capital. Top angel investors like Google India managing director Rajan Anandan, Sasha Mirchandani, Sunil Kalra and Samir Sood participated. The company, which enables businesses to engage with their customers in real-time, will use the funding to develop

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Deal Alert: Blume Ventures discloses investments in 12 firms

Seed fund Blume Ventures has disclosed that it has invested in 12 ventures in the first six months of 2013. 



Infollion: Delhi-based Infollion brings together buyers and sellers of research services or products on the same platform.

Batchcar: Mumbai-based Batchcar (earlier called SharedCab.com) is a provider of shared taxi service. Co-investors: Kae Capital, individuals.



NowFloats:

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Deal Alert: Ice cream vendor Hokey Pokey raises capital

Drums Food International, owner of the Hokey Pokey brand of ice cream, has raised less than a million dollars from investors led by Peter Rajsingh, a partner at New York-based Castellar Partners and Professor at New York University. Other investors include Shripad Nadkarni, a former marketing head at Coca-Cola India and Apurva Salarpuria, director at the Salarpuria Group. The company, promoted

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Entrevista with Ratish Nair, Founding-CEO of Interactive Avenues

Cross posted from the Entrevista blog at http://www.entrevista.in

Interview with Ratish Nair, Founding-CEO of Interactive Avenues (IA), the Mumbai-headquartered, Sequoia Capital India-backed digital marketing agency which was acquired in March 2013 by US- and Europe-based ad agency Interpublic. Interview focuses on the company's founding (5 co-founders who earlier worked at another digital

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Deal Alert: Sequoia, Norwest to invest $10-M in outdoor-gear maker Wildcraft: report

Sequoia Capital and Norwest Venture Partners are backing Bangalore-based outdoor-gear maker Wildcraft with a $10-million investment. The funds are valuing the backpack and rucksack brand at nearly $50 million. The fund raising is part of the strategy to transformWildcraft from mostly a technical outdoor gear to a broader lifestyle and leisure business.



Wildcraft's sales are nearing Rs 100

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Deal Alert: MS Dhoni invests in sports goods and apparel brand Fitsoul

Cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni has invested in sports goods and apparel brand Fitsoul, a venture backed by ex-Reebok honcho Sajid Shamim and entrepreneur Parvinder Singh. Fitsoul, launched seven months ago, has six stores and aims to be a sports goods retailing vertical selling multi-brand products.



The company has developed both online and brick-and-mortar stores. The company hopes to clock

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Deal Alert: TLabs inv in US-based travel info service Skift

New York based travel intelligence and information portal, Skift, has raised funding from Times Internet Limited. The terms of the deal do not involve a board seat.

Skift, which offers news, information, data and services related to travel, raised $1.1 million of funding in May this year in a round led by Lerer Ventures with participation from a group of eight angel investors along with seed

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Deal Alert: ATM outsourcing company EPS raises Rs.36-Cr more from Aavishkaar

ATM outsourcing company Electronic Payments and Services (EPS) has raised $6 million (Rs 36 crore) from Social VC fund Aavishkaar. This is the second round of funding for the start-up which has received the mandate to set up machines all over Maharashtra by public sector banks. EPS plans to deploy around 5000 plus ATMs by 2014 with 500 installations every month. 



Last year, Aavishkaar had

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Deal Alert: Sachin Tendulkar picks up 18% in sports simulator firm Smaaash Entertainment

Crickter Sachin Tendulkar has picked up an 18% stake in Smaaash Entertainment, the sports simulation venture, started by serial entrepreneur Shripal Morakhia. Morakhia earlier founded brokerage firm Sharekhan and investment banking firm SSKI. Smaash offers augmented reality simulators to play cricket and race F1 cars among other sports at its gaming arcade in Mumbai’s Lower Parel. Smaash is

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Deal Alert: Sequoia invests Rs.110-Cr in Vini Cosmetics

Sequoia Capital has bought a minority stake in Ahmedabad-based Vini Cosmetics Pvt. Ltd for Rs.110 crore. Of this, Rs.35 crore was used to purchase the stake of an unnamed investor. Rest of the funds raised will be used for diversifying into over-the-counter (OTC) products and nutraceuticals. 



Founded by Darshan Patel in 2010, Vini Cosmetics makes Fogg deodorants and talcum powder White Tone

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Deal Alert: Tata Capital, Morgan Stanley invest Rs.350-Cr in MFI Janalakshmi

PE funds including Tata Capital and Morgan Stanley Global Private Equity will pick up a significant minority stake in fourth round of funding for urban micro-lender Janalakshmi Financial Services for Rs.350 crore. Janalakshmi, promoted by former Citibanker Ramesh Ramanathan, offers services to 50,00,000 customers across 47 cities and has applied for a licence to transform itself into a bank. 

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Why Canaan Partners wants to back more Online Classifieds ventures

Canaan has already invested in Indian online classifieds firms like Bharatmatrimony, Cartrade and Indiaproperty and is hungry for more investments in the segment. Alok Mittal who heads the US headquartered venture firm's operations in India explains why and the dynamics of the sector in an interview to BusinessLine. Extracts (emphasis mine):









Exits have been attractive both in India and

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Will Indian Entrepreneurs' Satisfaction with Small Outcomes "Scare Away" VCs to Other Countries?

From a post by Mukund Mohan of Microsoft Ventures





As we start to invest in the early stage startup ecosystem in India,
it is important to calibrate the possible returns and allocate funds
associated with the returns. If most entrepreneurs in India are okay
with smaller returns, it makes sense for us to allocate fewer fund here
than China, Israel or Africa.

From our experience at the

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The Math for Start Up Funding in India: Accelerators vs Angels vs VCs

Mukund Mohan of Microsoft Ventures has a numbers-based post on the probability of funding and the equity dilutions Indian entrepreneurs face depending on whether they go to an Accelerator first versus VCs and Angel Investors.

The first scenario for you, the entrepreneur, is to get funded directly by a VC. The chances of that happening in India are low – 1.4%. The
other challenge is that those

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Deal Alert: Microsoft Accelerator announces 8 cos for 2013 winter batch

Microsoft will take on board 8 companies as a part of its winter batch for 2013. The companies are: 



AdSparx: Enables monetization for digital video delivered through the Internet for mobile devices, PCs and connected TVs.

ShieldSquare: Helps identify, detect, assess and protect against any account breaches on user accounts. 



Chance: An iPhone & Android application that will allow users

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Deal Alert: Zodius Capital invests $3-M in analytics firm Antuit

Zodius Capital has invested $3 million (around Rs 18 crore) in Bangalore- and Singapore-based big data and analytics company Antuit. Part of the investment has been used by Antuit, founded by Arijit Sengupta, to acquire a US-based analytics firm Marketwell in a part cash and stock deal. With this acquisition Antuit gets a presence in the US as well as access to 10 clients, of which three are

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Deal Alert: Intel Capital invests Rs.54-Cr in NxtGen Datacenter

Intel Capital has invested $9 million (Rs.54 crore) in Bangalore-based start-up NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies that offers data storage services to corporations in India. This is the first round of institutional investment for NxtGen.

NxtGen was founded in May last year by AS Rajgopal, who has previously worked with Tulip Data City and Reliance Communication's data center business.

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Deal Alert: Snapdeal raises $75-M from Softbank

eBay-backed online marketplace Snapdeal has raised $75 million from Softbank. Three months ago, Snapdeal had closed a $75 million investment round from Ebay, Intel Capital, Russian venture fund ru-Net, Saama Capital, Recruit Co, existing investors like Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and IndoUS Venture Partners and a few angel investors. Earlier, it had raised $12 million from

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Deal Alert: Cookie Man buys ID restaurant chain from Sathyam Cinemas

Confectionary chain Cookie Man, promoted by SBP Pattabhi Rama Rao, has bought into ID (standing for idlidosa), started in 2010 by SPI Diners, an arm of Chennai’s theatre chain Sathyam Cinemas. Till January this year, ID ran only one outlet, inside Sathyam Cinemas. Since then, it has started six more - two in Coimbatore and four in Chennai. Cookie Man plans to increase the total number of ID

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Deal Alert: Handicrafts e-tailer Caravan Craft raises Rs 1-Cr from Unitus Seed Capital

Caravan Craft Retail Private Limited, a Bangalore based apparel and home décor company, has raised Rs 1 cr from United Seed Fund. Co-founded by former Hidesign Chief Executive Officer Kunal R Sachdev, the company is set to launch a ‘single brand’ concept in India and will soon open up its first store in Bangalore focused on women. 



Source: Nextbigwhat 

 


Venture Intelligence is the

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Deal Alert: Head Held High raises Rs.2.5 Cr; in talks to raise Rs.20-Cr

Head Held High Services Pvt Ltd has raised a first round of investment of Rs 2.5 crore from Unilazer Ventures, five angels from the Intellecap Impact Investment Network (I3N). The angels included Pravin Gandhi, Jayesh Parekh, Reena Mithal and Sanjeev Shah, and US-based investors like Kartik Kilachand. 



Head Held High runs three initiatives - RubanShakti, a talent transformation platform

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Deal Alert: Organic products e-tailer Organicshop.in raises capital from Rajasthan Angel Investor Network

Organic products e-tailer, Organicshop.in, has raised an angel funding of Rs 30 lakh from Rajasthan Angel Investor Network (RAIN). 13 investors from the network have picked up a total stake of 30% equity stake in the Jaipur-based Organicshop.in that works on a marketplace model and does not stock any inventory. It currently features more than 1300 products across various categories such as

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Deal Alert: Former Viacom 18 CEO Vikram Malhotra floats independent studio, raises Rs. 150-Cr

Vikram Malhotra, the former CEO of Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, has ventured into an independent studio model under the banner Abundantia. He has raised Rs.150 crore from two investors - a Hong Kong-based private equity firm, which is making its debut in the Indian media and entertainment space, and a high net-worth individual ( HNI) from India who is not connected to the film world. Malhotra has

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Deal Alert: One97 acquires Plustxt

One97 has acquired Mumbai Angels- and Bangalore Angels-backed, Bangalore-based regional language messaging app startup, Plustxt. Plustxt allows text messaging in Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Malayalam and Kannada. 



Source: NextBigWhat

 



Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials,

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Deal Alert: E-tailer Squarekey raises funding from 500Startups, others

New York & Mumbai based online lifestyle retailer Squarekey has raised funding from 500Startups and Devaraj Southworth, Executive Vice President of US-based payments firm Zipmark. Squarekey is a editorially driven ecommerce play, providing Indian users access to range of international brands and curated services at the same price as available in the west. 



Source: iamwire

 



Venture

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Deal Alert: Saif invests in furniture e-tailer UrbanLadder

Bangalore based, online home decor retailer Urbanladder has raised Series A round of funding led by the Saif Partners. With this round of funding Deepak Gaur, Partner at Saif Partners has also joined the board of Urbanladder. Urbanladder which was co-founded by Ashish Goel and Rajiv Srivatsa in January 2012 had raised $1 million in seed funding from Kalaari Capital in August 2012.



The

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Deal Alert: Snow Leopard Tech Ventures invests in mobile payments firm LivQuik

Mumbai based payment technology startup LivQuik Technology (India) Pvt Ltd has raised funding from Snow Leopard Technology Ventures. The funds will be used to expand its team in engineering, operations and marketing. Chris Kolenaty, partner at Snow Leopard, has joined the board. 



LivQuik was founded by Mohit Lalwani and Yudhajit Nag Sen in April 2012. It provides a mobile wallet called

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Deal Alert: Curadev Pharma raises Rs 25 Cr

The FIPB has cleared Noida-based Curadev Pharma Pvt Ltd’s proposal to raise Rs.25 crores from a Venture Capital fund registered with SEBI. In March 2011 Curadev Pharma was incubated at IIT Kanpur. It does research in pre-clinical space to make IND (investigational new drugs) and pre-IND packages. 



Venture Intelligence is the leading provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials

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The Bubble in Social Venture / Impact Investing

Economic Times has raised the "danger" flag on the bubble building up in the sector in a full page feature.

"The hype around impact investing far outweighs reality," warns Vineet
Rai, founder and chairman of Intellecap, with over a decade's experience
in funding and handholding social entrepreneurs through the Aavishkaar
funds. "The expectations being raised are just beyond the capability

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Deal Alert: IAN incubates new cos

Indian Angel Network’s (IAN) virtual incubator has incubated eight new companies since January this year including:



Evomo Research & Advancement: the Ahmedabad-based startup is building ‘Saavaj’, a rural utility vehicle (RUV) that aims to replace the Jugaad, an unsafe motor vehicle used for transportation in the country’s hinterland. Evomo, founded in 2008 by Abhinav Kumar,was incubated at

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Deal Alert: Sequoia invests Rs.3.22 Cr in online accounting services firm Reach Accountant

Sequoia Capital India has invested Rs.3.22 crores in Chennai-based online accounting services firm Reach Accountant. The company issues 10 equity shares and 6,143 preference shares of face value Rs.10 at a price of Rs.5,230.31 each to Sequoia Capital India Investment Holdings III, regulatory filings reveal

 



From the Venture Intelligence Angel Investments database: In Feb 2012, Reach

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Deal Alert: Times Internet acquires restaurant recommendation app firm Gawbl

Times Internet’s city guide TimesCity has “acqui-hired” the Pune-based restaurant recommendation mobile app Gawbl, which was launched four months ago on Android. The Gawbl team will be joining TimesCity’s mobile team, where they will be working on improving TimesCity’s mobile apps. Gawbl founder Chiragh Kirpalani will be joining TimesCity as the head of mobile.



Founded in January 2013, Gawbl

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E&Y, Unitus Capital Top H1’13 League Tables among Transaction Advisors

Ernst & Young and Unitus Capital topped the Venture Intelligence India League Tables for
the Most Active Transaction Advisors to Private Equity deals

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Deal Alert: Omidyar Network picks up 29.33% in retail sector lender Neogrowth for Rs.17-Cr

Omidyar Network, via ON Mauritius Business, has picked up a 29.33% stake in NeoGrowth, a Mumbai-based NBFC which lends to small and medium sized retailers, for Rs.17 crore. NeoGrowth has allotted 74,625,870 preference shares at Rs.22.78 per share and 100 equity shares at the same issue price to the investor. As part of the deal, Dimple Sanghi has joined the board, regulatory filings reveal.

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AZB & Partners, Khaitan & Co. Top H1’13 League Tables

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