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New Delhi, Feb 19 () Homegrown early-stage venture capital firm, Blume Ventures on Wednesday announced the final close of Blume Ventures Fund III at USD 102 million (about Rs 730 crore). After a first close in late 2018, the final close was completed in December 2019, a statement said. Blume started in 2011 raising an entirely domestic Rs 100 crore fund from HNIs (high net-worth individuals) and subsequently raised a USD 60 million fund (Rs 400 crore) in 2016. It claimed that its the first entirely homegrown fund to raise a third fund and raise over USD 100 million in a single fund. "Blume's newest fund will continue to back early stage startups focusing on the two distinct opportunity sets that India offers, opportunities that leverage the mobile-led explosion of the Indian digital-first economy and Indian engineering and science translated to global market opportunities," it added. The fund III portfolio already includes more than 10 investments including HealthAssure (healthcare), Taaraka, Stage3 (consumer), Jai Kisan, TartanSense, Procol (agri), Classplus, Tapchief and LeverageEdu (edu-tech). Through Fund I and II, Blume had invested in companies like Unacademy, Grey Orange, Spinny, Turtlemint, Dunzo, Healthifyme, Purplle, Railyatri (IntrCity) and others. "We are very proud of our founders and team who have delivered outstanding performance over the last three years, thereby strengthening the Blume brand and track record immensely," Karthik Reddy, co-founder and managing partner at Blume Ventures said. SR SHWSHW

Blume Ventures announces final close of Fund III at $102 mn

New Delhi, Feb 24 () Blume Ventures on Monday said it has completed the final close of its opportunity fund, titled Fund IIA, at USD 41 million. Fund IIA was raised in parallel to Blume's new USD 102 million-Fund III announced last week. "Blume Ventures completed the final close of its opportunity fund, titled Fund IIA, in December 2019. The final close was at USD 41 million, raised from both domestic and international investors," a statement said. Many of these are existing Blume investors, it added. While Fund III targets new emerging startups, Fund IIA will invest in follow-on rounds of winners of Funds I, IA and II, the statement said. Blume had marked the first close of Fund IIA at USD 22 million in second half of 2018, it added. As many Fund I and II companies began to breakout, there were two counter-intuitive trends that were playing out, Karthik Reddy, co-founder and Investment Team member at Blume Ventures, said. "We were playing a very active role in most of them even beyond Series B - on boards and leveraging the powerful Blume Platform Team, whereas we had little or zero reserves for any of these stars. Our LPs saw the rationale and sponsored our opportunity fund strategy," he added. SR ANU

Blume Ventures closes Fund IIA

Venture capital giant <keyword id="144381" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Accel-Partners">Accel Partners</keyword> and <keyword id="3267567" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Infosys-cofounder-Nandan-Nilekani">Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekani</keyword> has funded the robotics firm <keyword id="3267189" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Systemantics">Systemantics</keyword>, which builds industrial robots for the manufacturing sector. The last time it had received funding was in 2013, when <keyword id="592779" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Blume-Ventures">Blume Ventures</keyword> had invested in the firm. 
 Systemantics was founded by IIT-Madras alumni <keyword id="3267568" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Jagannath-Raju">Jagannath Raju</keyword> in 1995. 
 
This is the seventh venture that Nilekani has backed. He has earlier invested in early-stage start-ups which he believes to be building highly impactful disruptive ideas. 
 In the past one year, Nilekani has backed Team Indus, Fortigo, Mubble, Juggernaut, Lets-Venture and <keyword id="1501494" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Power2sme">Power2SME</keyword>, while co-investing in a number of these ventures with Accel, including Fortigo and Power2SME. 
 Even though Systemantics likes to keep a low profile, it has quietly worked on custom robotics projects with the Government, as well as with tech giants like <keyword id="6359357" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Titan">Titan</keyword> and Hindustan Aeronautics (<keyword id="68124" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="HAL">HAL</keyword>). 
 
"Systemantics is Make In India truly at work - with India's cost structure advantages and innovative design efficiency at full strength. This core belief drove our decision to back them. Their seasoned management team's executional ability, coupled with deep-tech IP, could eventually challenge global incumbents," Sanjay Nath, managing partner at Blume Ventures, told ET. 
 
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GqZVMuglEzo/TsuDQiMhpGI/AAAAAAAAAR8/WEFieIp16N8/s1600/Nandan+Nilekani.jpg">Image source</a>

Nandan Nilekani funds robotics firm Systemantics

Ed-tech startup <keyword id="6630114" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Unacademy">Unacademy</keyword> raised $1 million in the latest funding round and was backed by Flipkart's <keyword id="225032" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sachin-Bansal">Sachin Bansal</keyword>, Binny Bansal, Paytm's <keyword id="198636" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vijay-Shekhar-Sharma">Vijay Shekhar Sharma</keyword>, and FreeCharge's <keyword id="192201" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kunal-Shah">Kunal Shah</keyword>. 
 The funding round was led by <keyword id="592779" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Blume-Ventures">Blume Ventures</keyword>, Stanford Angels India, WaterBridge Ventures, Traxcn Labs and a clutch of other angels, including Sandeep Tandon and Ashish Tulsian. 
 
The existing investors of Unacademy including Taxi4Sure’s Aprameya Radhakrishnan, redBus’ Phanindra Sama, CommonFloor’s Sumit Jain and Vikas Malpani (both CommonFloor) also participated. 
 
Unacademy is an education-technology based startup that allows educators to create courses on the platform. 
 Puducherry <keyword id="3547504" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="lg-kiran-bedi">LG Kiran Bedi</keyword> is also an educator on the platform. 
 
"Within two months, the Unacademy Create app will be made available to all, so anyone across the world can create lessons in any language they like. After a thorough screening process, we will make the relevant lessons available on our platform that will be free for all to see," said Chief Executive Gaurav Munjal, who started Unacademy along with Roman Saini. 
 
To become an educator on Unacademy, you have to go through an interview process and the selection is based on their experience. 
 
Once selected, the educators create video courses of not more than 10 minutes on its platform, which are available to students for free. 
 
"In a short span of eight months, the founding team has proved that leveraging technology to empower its educators and students is a problem that can be solved effectively at scale," said Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal. 
 
The startup claims to have more than 300,000 students for over 2,400 online lessons and specialised courses through the platform. 
"The product is designed for both lightweight production and consumption-in that it's ingenious. This can change learning to an entirely different plane and kill a lot of ine ective institutional frameworks," said Karthik Reddy, Managing Partner, Blume Ventures. 
 
(Image: Thinkstock)

Unacademy just raised $1 million and these are the top Indian entrepreneurs that backed this ed-tech startup

<keyword id="2461546" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="fintech" source="Orion">Fintech</keyword> company <keyword id="657366" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="slice" source="Orion">Slice</keyword> on Monday announced it has become India's new unicorn with raising $220 million in a Series B round, that values it at over $1 billion. The round was led by <keyword id="526777" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="tiger-global" source="Orion">Tiger Global</keyword> and New York-based global private equity and venture capital Insight Partners. Slice (Written as slice) is a credit card challenger to pay bills, manage expenses and unlock rewards. "We've kept our heads down in the initial years and focused solely on simplifying the consumer journey and creating a cutting-edge risk underwriting system," said Rajan Bajaj, Founder and CEO. New and existing investors including <keyword id="312345" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="advent-international" source="Orion">Advent International</keyword>'s Sunley House Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures, Anfa, Gunosy, <keyword id="592779" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="blume-ventures" source="Orion">Blume Ventures</keyword>, and 8i also participated in the round. Users can sign up with Slice in seconds, quickly get a virtual card (and get a physical card delivered to their home), and enjoy up to 2 per cent cashback on each transaction. Slice, which is shipping over 200,000 cards each month, recently opened doors to the new-to-credit population. They can start their financial journey with the newly introduced card with a limit of Rs 2,000. "Slice has built a product that customers love, which we expect will result in continued growth and market share gains," said Alex Cook, Partner at Tiger Global. Slice said it now has a registered user base of over 5 million and a 40 per cent month-on-month growth rate accompanied by industry-leading risk metrics. Nearly 38 Indian startups have made it to the unicorn list this year, raising more than $32 billion (till October). SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/after-coinbase-and-crosstower-singapores-coinstore-is-now-entering-india-despite-fears-of-a-ban-on-crypto/articleshow/87976839.cms">After Coinbase and CrossTower, Singapore’s Coinstore is now entering India despite fears of a ban on crypto</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/telecom/news/comparison-between-airtel-vs-jio-vs-vodafone-idea-prepaid-plans-after-hikes/articleshow/87977165.cms">Airtel vs Jio vs Vodafone Idea: latest prepaid plans and what you will get</a>

Fintech firm Slice becomes India's new unicorn

The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=startup+">startup</a> culture is growing in India as high networth individuals (HNIs) have invested more than Rs 1,200 crore into <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=venture+capital+">venture capital</a> funds focused on helping early-stage entrepreneurs. 
 These <keyword id="6362476" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="investments">investments</keyword> have flowed in over the past year into these venture <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=capital+funds+">capital funds</a> - <keyword id="2491409" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Orios-Venture-Partners">Orios Venture Partners</keyword>, Zodius Capital, Your-Nest Angel, Kalaari Capital and Blume Ventures - which have together raised Rs 4,360 crore, data shared by these funds with the Economic Times reveal. 
 
These funds have the mandate to invest in app-makers, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=radio+taxi+">radio taxi</a> companies, food-ordering platforms and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=healthcare+">healthcare</a> aggregators and such Internet businesses and other <keyword id="6362513" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Startups">startups</keyword>. In some funds, over 50% of the corpus raised has come in from high networth individuals. 
 The trend to invest in startups started with top executives and businessmen. "People who are exposed to various asset classes have now begun seeing value in venture funds," says <keyword id="1768757" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Sunil-Goyal">Sunil Goyal</keyword>, CEO of YourNest Angel Fund. 
 
He said: “Even traditionally wealthy investors are warming up to the idea of investing in startup funds." 
 
These numbers are in line with an ET CXO poll on startup investing published on Monday. Over 60% of the 100-plus CXOs polled by ET said they had already invested a portion of their wealth in startups. Another 25% expressed interest in such investments in the future. 
 
· Low awareness level "The HNI response to startup funds has been pretty good, but awareness level is still low," says Rehan Yar Khan, founder-partner at Orios Venture Partners. These funds, Khan says, are not yet as popular as <keyword id="6354553" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="real-estate">real estate</keyword> or equity funds. 
Orios Venture mobilised close to Rs 150 crore from HNIs in its earlier fund, which closed in August 2014. It is now raising Rs 1,200-crore fund and expects to get Rs 300 crore from rich Indian investors. 
Zodius Capital recently raised over 45% of its Rs 700-crore fund from rich domestic investors. 
 
· Ticket sizes have grown 
Individual ticket sizes have also grown over the past few months with average investment ticket sizes of Rs 10-20 crore. Wealth managers seek larger investments as these funds have a high failure rate. A portfolio of 20 companies may only have 3-4 multi-baggers (yielding returns of over 50 times), the rest being average performers and many turning plain duds. 
 
Wealth managers say funds will have to generate gross returns in excess of 20 per cent to make a meaningful case. "We'll have to wait and see how the first batch of funds delivers in terms of returns. Vintage funds in this segment will set the tone for future investments in startups," said Karthik Reddy, managing partner at Blume Ventures. 
 
 (Image: Indiatimes)

Rich people from around the world have invested more than Rs 1,200 cr in Indian startups

<ul><li><keyword id="6630114" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="unacademy">Unacademy</keyword> has raised $50 million in a series D round of funding. </li><li>The startup has investors like Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures.</li><li>The Indian <keyword id="6379645" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Online-Education">online education</keyword> space has players like Byju’s which has also reported profitability.</li></ul>Indian online education startup Unacademy has raised $50 million in a series D round of funding from investors like Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures. The investment, which will go towards bringing on board more educators and better the product, also saw the founders Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini participate in the round. “In the last few months, we have taken bigger strides toward achieving this mission. We have more than 400 top educators from across the country taking live classes every day on Unacademy Plus. This is available to every student, irrespective of their location,” said Munjal. Unacademy plus is the startup’s subscription plan which has more than 50,000 learners. The startup, which was founded in 2015, has over 13 million learners. “We are seeing unprecedented growth and engagement from learners in smaller towns and cities, and are also very humbled to see that top-quality educators are choosing Unacademy as their primary platform to reach out to students,” said Munjal. This also shows the growth trajectory of Indian online education space. Online education industry in India is expected to hit 9.6 million by 2021 user base, which was 1.6 million in 2016, as per a KPMG report. In fact, a survey by education startup GradeUp also shows that students are counting on online teaching for competitive exams — JEE, NEET, GATE, SSC and banking exams. Meanwhile, the big player in Indian <keyword id="1974983" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Edutech">edutech</keyword> space remains Byju’s – which had recently reported profitability with an increase in the number of paid users. Its revenue has tripled to reach ₹14.3 billion in the financial year ending March 2019, though it has not shared the net profit numbers. This volume of numbers has also brought in the renewed interest of investors, who are betting on the Indian education technology space. Interestingly, Sequoia is a common investor between Byju’s and Unacademy. See Also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/indian-students-prefer-online-coaching-for-jee-neet-gate-ssc-and-banking-exams/articleshow/69956565.cms">Indian students prefer online coaching to offline classes</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/mukesh-ambani-reliance-jio-and-byju-feature-in-meeker-report/articleshow/69770325.cms">Mukesh Ambani’s Jio and a startup Byju's are in global spotlight as India’s internet users exceed that of US</a>

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Blume Ventures announces final close of Fund III at $102 mn

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Blume Ventures closes Fund IIA

PTI

Nandan Nilekani funds robotics firm Systemantics

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Unacademy just raised $1 million and these are the top Indian entrepreneurs that backed this ed-tech startup

BI India Bureau

Fintech firm Slice becomes India's new unicorn

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Rich people from around the world have invested more than Rs 1,200 cr in Indian startups

BI India Bureau

Unacademy raises $50 million as Byju’s success draws top dollars into online education in India

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