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<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

<keyword id="45673" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="porsche" source="Orion">Porsche</keyword> unveiled plans to launch a new all-electric SUV as it reported a rise in sales and profit in its first annual earnings since parent Volkswagen took the sports-car maker public last year, according to the <keyword id="6384660" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="wall-street-journal" source="Orion">Wall Street Journal</keyword>. The German company said on Monday that the new luxury SUV would be a cornerstone of its plan to boost profitability by having a sharper, strategic focus on high-end automotive consumers. While Porsche has always made high-end vehicles, like the iconic 911 and its all-electric sedan, the Taycan, the company is seeking to follow rivals like Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz Group and <keyword id="91409" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="aston-martin" source="Orion">Aston Martin</keyword> Lagonda Global Holdings in targeting the growing ranks of the world's wealthiest consumers, <keyword id="51124" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="wsj" source="Orion">WSJ</keyword> said. "We are underlining and strengthening our sporty luxury positioning," said Porsche Chief Executive Officer <keyword id="3078430" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="oliver-blume" source="Orion">Oliver Blume</keyword>. "We see there are growing profit pools in this segment, especially in China and the US." Blume did, though, add that the design of the new all-electric SUV would feature Porsche's typical curving front-to-rear fly line, give a strong electric performance and include a range of fully automated functions. The SUV will be based on Porsche's own performance EV technology, WSJ said. Porsche was among the first high-end sports carmakers to venture into the growing SUV market when it launched the Cayenne in 2002. According to WSJ, The success of the vehicle, and its smaller cousin, the Macan, launched in 2014, inspired other luxury carmakers including Bentley and Lamborghini to develop their own luxury SUVs. The Wall Street Journal said an all-electric version of the Macan is due to be launched next year after a delay because of troubles with VW's software. An all-electric version of the 718 sports car is slated to come to market next year, followed later by the launch of a new electric generation of the company's Cayenne SUV. VW holds 75 per cent of Porsche. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/avoid-ai-chatbots-that-dont-appear-on-companys-website-or-app-warn-researchers/articleshow/98629176.cms">Avoid AI chatbots that don't appear on company's website or app, warn researchers</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/mfs-add-shares-of-indigo-paytm-pvr-nazara-technologies-among-others-in-february/articleshow/98630434.cms">MFs add shares of Indigo, Paytm, PVR &amp; Nazara Technologies among others in February</a>

Porsche plans new electric luxury SUV as profit rises

Homegrown micro-blogging platform <keyword id="3518161" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="koo">Koo</keyword> on Wednesday said it has raised $30 million in Series B funding, led by Tiger Global. Koo has garnered nearly 60 lakh downloads in just a year of operations. "We have aggressive plans to grow into one of the world's largest social media platforms in the next few years. Every Indian is cheering for us to get there soon. Tiger Global is the right partner to have on board to realise this dream," said Aprameya Radhakrishna, <keyword id="170488" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="co-founder">Co-Founder</keyword> and CEO of Koo. Koo's existing investors <keyword id="144381" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Accel-Partners">Accel Partners</keyword>, <keyword id="1397792" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kalaari-Capital">Kalaari Capital</keyword>, <keyword id="592779" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Blume-Ventures">Blume Ventures</keyword> and Dream Incubator also participating in the round. IIFL and Mirae Assets are other new investors who have come on board the cap table with this round, the company informed. Koo last week said it has met the compliance requirements of the new IT (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2021 ahead of its May 25 deadline set by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Koo said earlier this month announced to launch a unique feature that will help users speak and type messages without using the keyboard in regional languages, apart from English. Called 'Talk to Type,' the feature will help Koo users speak out their thoughts and the words will show up on the screen at the click of a button. Founded last year, the vernacular micro-blogging platform Koo crossed 60 lakh users within no time and aims to garner 10 crore users by the end of this year. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/whatsapp-moves-the-delhi-high-court-against-indias-new-it-laws-says-report/articleshow/82965251.cms">WhatsApp moves the Delhi High Court against India’s new IT laws, says report</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/environment/news/cyclone-yaas-will-unleash-its-fury-for-another-12-to-18-hours-after-making-landfall/articleshow/82964922.cms">Cyclone Yaas will unleash its fury for another 12 to 18 hours after making landfall</a>

India's micro-blogging app Koo raises $30 million led by Tiger Global

New Delhi, Homegrown Twitter-like platform <keyword id="3518161" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="koo">Koo</keyword> has garnered over 10 lakh new users in just one week, surpassing the 40 lakh-figure in nearly 10 months of its arrival, as Twitter was caught in crosshairs with the Indian government over its direction to remove nearly 1,400 controversial accounts. Koo, a favourite among several Union ministers, including IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who is at the forefront of the government's war with Twitter, has reached 4.2 million users within no time. According to data analytics platform Statista, as of January 2021, the micro-blogging platform Twitter had an audience reach of 69.3 million users in the US. Japan and India were ranked second and third with 50.9 and 17.5 million users, respectively. The fast-growing vernacular platform Koo describes itself as a personal updates and opinion sharing micro-blogging service. The app won the Atmanirbhar App Innovation Challenge held in August last year and Prime Minister <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> encouraged Indians to use the Koo app in his 'Mann Ki Baat' speech too. However, Koo also found itself in the midst of several controversies including a data leak row and Chinese investment. Koo Co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna denied that there was any data leak. "Koo is an India registered company with Indian founders. Raised earlier capital 2.5 years ago. Latest funds for Bombinate Technologies is led by a truly Indian investor 3one4 capital. Shunwei (single digit shareholder) which had invested in our Vokal journey will be exiting fully," Radhakrishna said in an earlier investment. Koo has raised $4.1 million as part of its Series A funding. Infosys veteran Mohandas Pai's 3one4 Capital is the latest addition to the investors on board, according to the company, and <keyword id="144381" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Accel-Partners">Accel Partners</keyword>, <keyword id="1397792" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kalaari-Capital">Kalaari Capital</keyword>, <keyword id="592779" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Blume-Ventures">Blume Ventures</keyword> and Dream Incubator also participated in the round. "We have got more love than we expected. Our systems are facing more load than ever. Thank you for placing your trust in us. Our team is working on overdrive to fix it. We request your patience and support through this time. Let's do this together," Radhakrishna had said. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/india-issues-new-guidelines-for-passengers-arriving-from-the-uk-brazil-europe-and-middle-east-countries/articleshow/81083248.cms">India issues new guidelines for passengers arriving from the UK, Brazil, Europe and Middle-East countries</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/not-just-a-tiktok-clone-says-chingari-app-founder-with-their-latest-shop-within-videos-feature-which-he-claims-is-the-next-big-thing-in-social-commerce/articleshow/81084432.cms">‘Not just a TikTok clone,’ says Chingari founder with their latest shop within videos feature which he claims is the next big thing in social commerce</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/samsung-galaxy-f62-review-the-new-mid-range-killer/articleshow/81084382.cms">Samsung Galaxy F62 review – the new mid-range killer</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/cairn-energy-ceo-meets-indian-finance-secretary-as-shareholders-impatiently-wait-for-action-on-the-1-4-billion-tax-dispute/articleshow/81087952.cms">Cairn Energy CEO meets Indian finance secretary as shareholders impatiently wait for action on the $1.4 billion tax dispute</a>

As Twitter engages in a firefight with the Indian government, homegrown rival Koo crosses 4 million users within 10 months of launch

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

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

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

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

<ul><li><keyword id="3275685" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="dunzo">Dunzo</keyword> has grown 40X as a business and 8X in terms of number of people on its platform in the past 18 months.</li><li>While its present in eight cities currently, it aims to enter 20 cities in the long run because they believe that’s where 70% of the business comes from.</li><li>With half a million monthly transacting users and two million monthly transactions, <keyword id="5016554" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="kabeer-biswas">Kabeer Biswas</keyword>, CEO, is certain they will touch 15-17 million monthly transactions by the end of next year.</li><li>Recently Dunzo raised $45 million in a fresh round from <keyword id="1058387" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Lightbox">Lightbox</keyword>, <keyword id="6355629" type="DEFINITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="google">Google</keyword>, <keyword id="8178411" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="3L-Capital">3L Capital</keyword>, and <keyword id="8233231" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="stic-investment-stic-ventures">STIC Investment &amp; STIC Ventures</keyword>.</li></ul> It was in 2015, while working at another startup in Gurgaon that the idea for Dunzo first came to CEO Kabeer Biswas. The thought was simple – in a day and age when one can hail a cab by tapping a few times on your phone screen, why can’t the same be done for everything else? The thought primarily came to him because he was working for 15-16 hours everyday and did not want to waste his weekends on running errands. He ran the idea by a few friends in Bangalore, to get a validation on his idea, to get a sense of whether it was viable to run a <keyword id="3179264" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="hyper-local-delivery">hyper-local delivery</keyword> organization, and whether there was any demand for it. He set up Dunzo on a Whatsapp group and asked three of his friends to simply text him the chores they needed to get done. While there wasn’t much to do intially, within four months, it blew up on Whatsapp, Biswas had close to 10,000 users, without spending any money on advertising about the platform. It all happened through word-of-mouth. This was also the time when Biswas was the only person managing everything. It was in 2016 that Karthik Reddy of Blume Ventures was in Bangalore and he heard about Dunzo from the wives of his friends. Curious to know more about the venture, he got in touch with Biswas and that’s how Dunzo raised its first capital. The most part of 2016 was spent in building a team and putting up the product on the store. By 2017, Biswas was clear about the business model, Dunzo would largely do three things for its consumers, the business would be about collecting requests from consumers, the platform would help them place those requests seamlessly, would manage payments and then figure out who the correct person on ground is to manage the request. It was 2018 when Dunzo came under the spotlight, thanks to a $12.5 million funding from Google, its first direct investment in India. Since then, in the words of Biswas, ‘Things have been insane.’ He shares that while 2018 was all about building scale, 2019 has been all about managing that scale. What’s worked in favour of Dunzo so far While coming up with a business plan for Dunzo, Biswas says they were studying global players and seeing if they could find any parallel to what they wanted to achieve with their platform. The one platform that came closest to their offering was Indonesian unicorn Gojek, which is known to be a platform that delivers 'everything'. So what is it that Dunzo is trying to achieve? Biswas says, “We have been told globally that the number of times people use Dunzo in Indian cities is higher than what they have seen anywhere else in the world. The top 10% of our users use us 20 times a month. People are using us to largely deal with the local world around them. Someone told us, think of Dunzo as a browser on the top of the real world. It makes the real world a lot more convenient, exactly how the browser allows you to easily surf the internet. I believe by 2025, local search will no longer exist. It will most likely look like Dunzo, where you won’t want to search but tell the app about a shop and item and expect the app to get the work done for you. And the platform will take care of the payment and the logistics at the same time.” That the business model is working is clear from the fact that Dunzo has grown 40X as a business and 8X in terms of number of people on its platform in the past 18 months. Creating the 2.0 versions of on-demand services platforms Swiggy recently expanded its offering and launched Swiggy Go, an instant pick up and drop service to send packages anywhere across the city, a direct competition for Dunzo. While currently its offering the service only in Bengaluru, its plans are to expand to 300 cities by 2020. However, Biswas is unfazed and hardly looks at Swiggy’s offering as a threat. “Today there are two types of businesses, the 1.0 and the 2.0 businesses. Swiggy looks very much like the 1.0 businesses which went behind scale and built out a massive platform but the utilization ratios don’t work out. Globally, everybody who is a part of a 1.0 business has had to pivot to 2.0. For me, this is, if anything, a pivot at Swiggy, where just delivering food wasn’t good enough to make money. This is not only about Swiggy, but about every 1.0 business out there. They have to figure out the 2.0 version of them. Our utilization numbers are atleast 50-60% higher than any of the other 1.0 businesses.” Dunzo is also clear that they want to enter limited markets, and want to cover those markets extensively. “We believe that 20 cities account for almost 70% business in the country today. Our idea is to enter the top 20 cities in India and enter them deeply. We want to make sure that we are the largest local commerce player in these 20 cities. So we are very happy that Swiggy launched. Now that they have launched, we are still growing, and growing even faster. The only thing I can say is thank you, its helps us raise funds,” add Biswas with a laugh. Dunzo might even think of crossing international borders, in the next two years, shares Biswas. Plans for the next few quarters Currently Dunzo has half a million monthly transacting users and two million monthly transactions. By the end of next year, they expect to have 15-17 million monthly transactions on their platform. To achieve that, the platform will focus on improving their user experience. Biswas explains, “We genuinely believe that if you focus on building a better consumer experience, it leads to a better and sustainable business model. We are not in this business to gain market share but to make sure that we’re able to return our investor’s capital at some point. Every company that raises money has to give the money back and it has to be a sustainable business. So our focus will be to constantly invest on improving our consumer experience.” Currently, an average order takes 28 minutes to get delivered and within the next six months, Biswas expects to bump this number up to 25 minutes. Till today, Dunzo hasn’t spent too much on marketing the platform and it plans to keep it the same way in the foreseeable future. “For every 100 users that join Dunzo, 35-40 % of them are organic in nature. Around 35% come on board through incentivized referral channels, 15% come from BTL and 10% through digital,” explains Biswas. So no plans of using TV? His answer is a firm ‘No’. “I have this concept of ‘funny money’. When you have funny money, you should market big. However, if you are an internet business, why aren’t people talking to each other about you? They are all connected on the internet, so why do you need TV, really? TV is good for when your organic growth is slowing down and we are far away from it. It’s a trillion transactions that ‘we are chasing, and we are at 2 million currently. We have a long way to go,” he adds.

Dunzo is aiming at achieving 17 million monthly transactions by the end of next year, with minimal marketing

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">AtomicoNew Atomico partners Carter Adamson and Alexis Bonte</div></div></div><ul><li>London-based venture capital firm Atomico is one of the biggest investors in the UK with $1.5 billion under management.</li><li>The firm is doubling down on the US and Europe with two senior hires - US-based Rdio cofounder Carter Adamson, and European-focused eRepublik Labs CEO Alexis Bonte.</li><li>Adamson is Atomico's first on-the-ground hire in the US and is likely to drive up the number of transatlantic investments. </li></ul> London-based venture capital firm Atomico will double down on investments in US and European startups with two new partners: Rdio cofounder Carter Adamson and eRepublik Labs CEO Alexis Bonte.The new hires reflect <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/benefits-of-paris-technology-startups-investment-station-f-london">rising investor interest in startups outside the UK</a>, with France and Spain looking like particular hotspots."Traditionally in Europe, the UK has taken the bulk of venture investment," Bonte told Business Insider. "Scandinavia was also quite strong, and then Germany, France, Spain and other European countries were a bit secondary. That's not true any more."While there's a growing number of seed investors in France and Spain, according to Bonte, Atomico can help plug a gap between seed and Series A and Series B.Bonte will work part-time at Atomico and juggle his investment duties with his full-time job as CEO of eRepublik Labs, a gaming studio he sold to Swedish publisher stillfront last summer in a cash and share deal.Bonte has known Atomico founders Niklas Zennström and Matthias Ljungberg since his time as a founding member of Lastminute.com. He also helped bring in French and Spanish LPs to invest in Atomico's fourth fund, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/atomico-niklas-zennstrom-raises-765-million-european-startups-2017-2">which closed at </a><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/atomico-niklas-zennstrom-raises-765-million-european-startups-2017-2">$765 million (£613 million) last February</a>."I wanted to use some of the skills I'd acquired on the investment side - I've been an angel for quite a long time - at a level where there would be more impact," he said. Bonte will ping-pong between London, Paris, Madrid and Bucharest.<h2>There will be more Atomico investments in US startups</h2>Brooklyn-based Adamson is Atomico's first on-the-ground hire in the US, and he will work closely with London-based general partner Hiro Tamura. Adamson too is a long-time acquaintance of the Atomico founders, initially working under Zennström at Skype and then acting as entrepreneur-in-residence to help found new portfolio firms, such as streaming service Rdio. He has particular focus on consumer, media, and health startups.The US investment scene is highly competitive, with startups receiving more venture capital than any other country.Atomico will only focus on startups that want to expand outside the US, Adamson said."We have basically two lenses," he said. "We're very entrepreneur-first. It's all about the entrepreneurs and the mission they're trying to set out and execute. That's first and foremost. The second important lens is that we look for companies that are looking to expand into other parts of the world, whether it be Europe, Asia, Latin America. That is extremely important for us. If we don't feel like we can help them expand into global companies, it's very difficult for us to get behind the company."We don't want to just provide the cheque, but also value."Atomico has also made some changes at the junior level, promoting senior associate Ben Blume to principal and hiring three new associates: former Goldman Sachs associate Hillary Ball, former head of expansion at collapsed food startup Jinn Adam Lasri, and former Lazard analyst Will Dufton. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/slauerhoffbrug-bridge-netherlands-flying-drawbridge-lifts-lowers-unique-way-2018-1">You've never seen a bridge like this before</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

UK venture capital firm Atomico is expanding with 2 new partners

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)

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