11 Best Indian Venture Capitalists & Where Are They Investing In 2020
To latch on to growth, it is the venture capitalists (VCs) that boost potential startups, ventures or small companies. There is a lot of vigilance and tracking involved in this pursuit. But VC executives are the ones that put their predictions to invest. Quite simply, such private equity firms are the ones who sit with a microscope and look for brilliance and dedication.
If figures are to be brought into action, somewhere around $254 billion was invested globally which accounted for 18,000 startups being pushed to glory. To talk about the situation of Indian venture capitalist industry, a very impressive start was seen in Q1 with the US $7.9 billion being invested in it.
Venture capital firms have been operational in India since the 90s. But majorly in the past 10years, the Indian startup scenario has witnessed a push through the funding raised from them. It was as early as 2006, that the majority of VC firms became active and functioning.
There are a lot of examples to put out. The biggest ones among them being Flipkart and Oyo are known to have raised the most amount of capital. Risk is certainly one factor. There is so much more that venture capitalists seek before investment. There is a windfall if a venture capitalist succeeds, but a backlash with the failure is imminent too. Let’s take a look at the top 10 venture capitalists in India, the type of funding they provide and their preferred niches for companies or startups.
1. Saama Capital
Saama Capital kick-started in 2006, as a wing of SVB Capital Partners. But later on in 2011, Ash Lilani and Suresh Shanmugham tore it into an altogether separate firm. It has made major investments into many platforms, including Lendingkart, Sminq India Solution, Veeba Food Services, Fisdom, Snapdeal, Paytm, Mezi, AppLabs, Tutorvists, Prizm Payments, Sula Vineyards, Sks MicroFinance, currently known as Bharat Financial Inclusion.
Saama Capital is currently invested in, Chai Point, RAW Pressery, EazyDiner and Bluestone.
Website: http://simafunds.com
India Quotient is a well-known Mumbai based investment firm that has 70 portfolio companies which it currently aids. This number is aimed to grow by 15-20 more with its upcoming fund. India Quotient, a seed-stage investor, began in 2012 with $5 million assigned to its first fund. This venture capitalist firm is interested to add manure to startups with a $20-100 million valuation.
They look out for potentiality in firms or companies making use of Big Data, AI and Blockchain technologies. Founder Anand Lunia shines as a lead investor in myHQ, Masai School, Vyapar App, Coolberg, GoComet, ShareChat, Lendingkart.
Website: https://www.indiaquotient.in
In 2011, SAIF Partners started as a stage sector venture capitalist firm. SAIF acts as a VC to many private and public companies. They look for visionary entrepreneurs and their vision is not niche confined. They readily take up potential startups across all diverse sectors.
It has provided major funding to startups like Swiggy, NoBroker, ShareChat, UrbanClap and Rivigo. It is looking forward to expanding and growing further in the upcoming 8-10 years. SAIF serves as a Series-A investor, particularly for consumer brands and tech-powered businesses. Additionally, this VC firm sees potential to invest in the B2B, SaaS startup space too.
Website: http://www.saifpartners.com
Kalaari Capital has been a top hit in India and looks at it as homegrown venture capitalists. It served as a seed-stage venture capitalist to Urban Ladder, Curefit, Myntra and serves as a late-stage investor too. Kalaari reaches out to entrepreneurs with a distinctive richness and a newness in their concepts. They mainly look for startups with an avant-garde concept.
Recently, in October 2019, it invested in ElasticRun by raising $40M. All in all, Kalaari Capital, founded by Vani Kola has made a total of 155 investments and stands as a lead investor for 61 of them. A total of $479M funds have been raised by Kalaari Capital. It is a Bangaluru based VC firm.
Website: https://www.kalaari.com
This VC firm is a sub-organization of IDG Ventures and has successfully raised $703M of total funds. In India, Chiratae is a progressive technology venture capital fund. It was founded by Sudhir Sethi and TC Sundaram in 2006. Chiratae is inclined towards becoming a major investor in entrepreneurial setups in India and has currently had 75+ ventures.
They are a corporate venture capital firm that has pitched in investments at an early stage venture, late-stage venture and as a seed funder. Chiratae invests in consumer media and technology, software/SaaS, Health Tech and Fin-Tech. Their Series-A funding list includes Onco.com, Miko, Play Shifu among others.
Website: https://www.chiratae.com
Info Edge serves as a parent to Naukri Internet Services (NISL). This is an early to late venture capitalist firm that has its branches spread across several domains and has become India’s top internet-based business. It has a portfolio that majorly invests in businesses and independent entrepreneurial ventures like Zomato and Policy Bazar.
Info Edge delves into the Indian consumer internet domain profoundly. It was launched in April 2006. Info Edge has made investments in Nogle Technologies, Kinobeo Software Ninety Nine Labs in the course of 2010-2011. There are two flagship products that Info Edge is known for, namely CleanProperties and PricePoint.
Website: http://www.infoedge.in
Blume Ventures founded by Karthik Reddy and Sanjay Natch is into tech-enabled or tech-focused ventures. Blume Ventures have an inclination towards B2B businesses. But apart from that, they partner across agriculture, BioTech, CleanTech, Commerce, DeepTech, Education, FinTech, Gaming, Healthcare, HRTech, Media, Mobility, Real Estate, Retail, Social and Travel. They function as a seed funder or an early-stage venture and mostly go for long term investment.
Optimally Blume Venture provides funding somewhere around $50K- $250K and is based in Mumbai. They have had 181 investments so far and has been able to raise a total of $122.4M via their 3 funds. They have provided Series-A funding for Log 9 Materials, Wedding Brigade, FastFox and Series-B funding for HealthifyMe. They have a $0.05 Mn – $0.3 Mn seed funding range.
Their seed round findings include Lambda Test, Trell, Classplus, Cognicept Systems, InVideo, Bijak, The Healthy Billion, GreyOrange, Kaleidofin, and Unacademy. They bagged an award for Seed VC Investor of 2018 among others.
Website: https://blume.vc
DSG Consumer Partners are a Singapore based venture capital firm that invests in consumer businesses. It’s founder and managing director, Deepak Shahdadpuri believes in long term investment and has been providing investments since 2013. They have invested in leading brands like Eazydiner, Zipdial, Tierra Food, Exito Gourmet, Redmart, Vybes and Suzette among others.
They are also widely known as an institutional backer and have funding OYO, Indian hospitality unicorn the same way. DSG looks into consumer products and India remains the crux of all their investments. They provide Series-A funding for SleepyCat, Planet SuperHeroes, Leverage Edu.
Website: http://www.dsgcp.com
Nexus Venture Partners stipulates seed, growth stage and early-stage investments. Its founders include Naren Gupta, Suvir Sujan and Naren Gupta, in addition to are a Mumbai and Silicon Valley-based VC firm.
The venture capitalist firm, notorious for its investments in startups like Zomato, Snapdeal, Goodera, Delhivery and Komli, ScaleArc and PubMatic.
They focus mainly on early growth-stage companies. Nexus Venture Partners, have provided Series-A funding to WhiteHat Jr, Series-B funding to Postman, Rapido Bike Taxi and Series-C funding to Rancher Labs among others. For early growth stage companies, they have an investment budget of $0.5Mn and $10 Mn. They look out for investment opportunity in capital-efficient business models, driven entrepreneurs, high potential market opportunities, innovative and differentiated ventures and standalone businesses.
Website: https://nexusvp.com
10. Basil Partners
They are a Singapore based venture capitalist firm with Rajeev Srivastava as it’s CEO and Managing Partner with Soma Ghosal Dhar as it’s CEO and partner. They dedicated to fund technology service companies and has been active since 2008. They are focussed on technology investments in the USA, SE Asia and India.
In 2018 they concluded with their 3rd funding round. They have funded Accion Labs, Endeavour Software Technologies with Series-A funding, Karmic Lifesciences and Netscribes with a Series-B funding and Select Hub, CIGNEX Datamatics and Razorfish Technologies India with venture rounds.
Website: http://basilpartners.com
They can be readily called as one of the oldest homegrown private equity firms in India. Helion VC has invested in many startups and companies as an early to late-stage and a private equity investor. It had 4 Indian founders, out of which, 3 severed ties in 2015.
They were founded back in 2009. Successful in investments in Big basket, MoEngage, Whatfix, Toppr, GoZefo, Livspace, Workspot among others. Helion venture partners span across entrepreneurial domains of online services, mobility, outsourcing, consumer services, enterprise software, E-commerce among others.
Website: http://www.helionvc.com
With the growing private equity, Venture Capital market in India, in July it sought to soar to a high of $8.3 billion. These figures are expected to see a further rise, due to the above top 11 VCs that have been thoroughly active and engaging to boost business by raising funds.