Indian FinTech industry serves one of the most demanding and price-sensitive consumers globally. It has successfully cracked the consumer-centric aspect of financial services, resulting in significant growth in mobile wallets, applications, and other digital solutions aimed at consumers. The quick adoption and creation of innovative businesses in the last half-decade have made India a unique FinTech market for investors.

The State of Preventive Health report by Chiratae Ventures in collaboration with AWS and our knowledge partner Redseer puts forward our view on the rising consumer awareness on their health and the increasing contribution of digital technologies to the growing preventive healthcare landscape.

The Consumer Tech report by Chiratae Ventures, in association with their knowledge partner PGA Labs talks about the unique evolution of Consumer Tech in India, the opportunities that lie ahead for India in the overall context of global trends that are shaping the sector.

2021 was a landmark year for the Indian SaaS space, with the industry witnessing 50% growth in revenue and 3X growth in venture capital funding – which the Chiratae-Zinnov SaaS report had predicted last year. Hardly four months into 2022, India has already produced nearly the same number of SaaS unicorns as it had in the whole of 2021, suggesting that the tailwinds will continue strongly, this year too.

India’s preventive healthcare sector to reach a value of USD $197 Bn by 2025: a report by Chiratae Ventures, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Redseer July 21, 2022 With a value of USD $93 Bn in 2021, the preventive healthcare sector accounts for approximately 36% of the overall healthcare industry As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the preventive healthcare sector is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 22% during 2022-25, as compared to 15% for the curative sector Startups are at the forefront of driving preventive healthcare in India, leveraging digital technologies and unlocking the power of consumers’ health and lifestyle data at scale July 21, 2022: According to a report released by strategy consulting firm Redseer Strategy Consultants in collaboration with Chiratae Ventures and Amazon Web Services (AWS), India’s preventive healthcare sector, which includes fitness and wellness, foods and supplements, early diagnostics and health tracking among others, is projected to reach USD $197 Bn by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 22%. “India is looking to effectively deliver quality healthcare to a billion people through rapidly evolving technology that can provide affordable, accessible and personalized healthcare. We have invested over $150M in healthcare companies in India, such as Cure.fit, Redcliffe, HealthifyMe, Smiles.ai, HealthPlix, Onco, and others, who are revolutionizing care delivery in nutrition and wellness, cancer, genomics, and other critical areas,” said Sudhir Sethi, Founder, Chairman, Chiratae Ventures. India has traditionally focused on curative care as opposed to preventive care. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, preventive care has increased in importance across India. A survey conducted with over 1,000+ individuals reveals that at least 40% of the respondents were highly inclined towards preventive health. Another survey conducted with a group of 300+ Health-Conscious Individuals (HCIs)* reveals that they actively track different aspects of their health such as lifestyle, physical wellness, and more, to maintain and prolong wellness. These HCIs are familiar with health monitoring devices and apps and use them regularly to monitor their health. Further, the study revealed that these HCIs spend on an average between INR 4,000 and INR 10,000 on various preventive healthcare practices annually and are also willing to pay up to 50% more in the future. More than 40 preventive healthcare technology (“HealthTech”) startups have raised approximately USD $1 Bn in funding over the last three years to tap the preventive health opportunity across segments such as nutrition management, condition management, lifestyle monitoring, health checkups, and mental and physical wellness. They are leveraging cloud computing to build and scale their applications, which generate, digitize and analyze vast amounts of health data using advanced technologies such as internet of things (IoT), data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). For instance, over 30% of the top 40 funded preventive HealthTech startups leverage AI/ML for use cases such as medical image analysis, document extraction, chatbots, personalization, and health risk prediction. The rollout of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) will further augment the availability of data and utilization of these technologies. Kumara Raghavan, Head – AWS Startups India, Amazon Internet Services Private Limited said: “Startups are known for their ability to invent new solutions that address society’s problems and inefficiencies, and the digital transformation happening in India’s healthcare sector is an example. At AWS, we’re on a mission to empower the startups at the center of this change with the tools they need to build new digital healthcare solutions for the betterment of all Indians. AWS provides the security and privacy that HealthTech startups require, as well as the expertise and breadth and depth of services that founders can rely on to build transformative healthcare solutions to enhance the health and wellbeing of individuals. Cloud technologies like machine learning, analytics, and Internet of Things have the potential to open new channels to help monitor health and wellness, decrease the cost of care, improve collaboration, make data-driven clinical and operational decisions, and enable faster development of new therapeutics and treatment paths. Whether our customers are building telemedicine, remote monitoring, diagnostics, fitness, or personalized wellness solutions, we are committed to providing the tools that enable HealthTech startups to support preventive care.” Redseer’s report also said that not only startups, but diversified corporates and healthcare businesses, are entering the preventive health space by partnering with startups or building their own programs and digital platforms.The Indian consumer is expected to benefit from the shift from curative to preventive, with the delivery of better health outcomes and lower healthcare costs “Startups can unlock the potential of preventive healthcare in India by focusing on the 3A’s – Awareness, Accessibility, and Affordability for consumers. Creating more HCIs, tapping into existing ones and leveraging partnerships with corporates, providers, and insurers ways that can help move in this direction.” said Amitabh Kumar, Senior Manager, Redseer Strategy consultants. *Note: Health-Conscious Individuals (HCIs) refer to NCCS A (refers to households with the highest number of consumer durables owned, and with the highest level of education) individuals who have scored 40 or more on Health Consciousness Score (HCS). HCS is the sum of scores obtained on 10 different activities, rated on a scale of 1-5 (1 being never and 5 being always). These activities are eating regularly, sleeping 8 hours, exercising, drinking water regularly, visiting the doctor for annual check-ups, eating unhealthy foods in moderation, practicing stress relief activities, spending less time on screen, maintaining work-life balance and using self-monitoring tools. About Redseer Strategy Consultants Redseer Strategy Consultants is a leading strategy consulting firm. Founded in 2009, Redseer works with new-age consumer-focused businesses and offers growth advisory, digital strategy, and investments thesis. The company is a thought leader in the Internet economy space and is the most widely quoted consulting firm in the media. The company boasts of a 90% + market share of new-age IPOs. Zomato, India’s first major consumer tech IPO, and GoTo, one of the world’s largest consumer tech IPO, Nykaa, Paytm, Cartrade, and Delhivery are other noted IPO engagements of Redseer. The company also enjoys more than

Patient, culture-oriented Chiratae Ventures has grown and diversifed in step with India’s gradually blossoming VC market. AVCJ MagazineJuly 22, 2019 Patient, culture-oriented Chiratae Ventures has grown and diversifed in step with India’s gradually blossoming VC market. Its latest expansions suggest this trajectory is set to accelerate WHEN INDIA’S CUREFIT RAISED $75 million for its Series D round last month, it marked a turning point in the level of sophistication of local digital consumers as well as the start-up ecosystem they support. But this evolution is more clearly refected by the story arch of the investors behind the deal. Chiratae Ventures, which has backed Cureft since its frst institutional round in 2016, holds the company up as an example of how India has changed and how the investment industry has had to change with it. Cureft, which operates a chain of brick-and-mortar gyms tied together with a suite of ftness apps, represents a deeper way of engaging Indian consumers, beyond the straightforward business remodeling associated with the country’s frst internet forays. The VC frm started in the frst decade of the 2000s with a pure online retail focus that beftted the buzz around India’s initial digitization boom. Early successes under this strategy have revealed the changing landscape, however, and the need for nimble, opportunistic maneuvering. These investments include eyewear platform Lenskart, which has rapidly morphed into a complex ofine- to-online model with an empire of 500 physical stores, and fashion retailer Myntra, which was bought by local e-commerce giant Flipkart, which itself was later acquired by Walmart for $16 billion. Chiratae has duly gravitated toward the later- stage end of the spectrum and broadened its investment thesis. It has also demonstrated that the local VC industry may be close to reaching sufcient depth to be a self-perpetuating machine. Cureft, for example, was founded by the same entrepreneur responsible for Myntra, Chiratae’s connection to Flipkart and by extension a range of other opportunities. All the while, the parabolic digital growth story unfolds. India’s internet user base has increased 10x since Chiratae began operations, but the frm expects 20x growth in the decade to come. “India today has more than 500 million internet users and many of them are mobile consumers, so it has evolved from a mere e-commerce strategy to content, commerce, and community. We’re looking at a combination of consumer brands that are tech-enabled,” explains Karthik Prabhakar, an executive director at Chiratae. “By our second fund, we became a combination of a bottom-up and top-down investor, still allocating to seed stage, but also in Series C onwards. That portfolio construct keeps a lookout for new trends and also creates early returns.”  Changing its spots Chiratae was founded in 2006 as IDG Ventures India by Sudhir Sethi, T.C.M. Sundaram, Sethi, an engineer who worked for local tech heavyweights such as Wipro and served as India head for Walden International, played a key role in the initial set-up. After leaving Walden in 2002 and weathering two fzzled attempts to raise an independent fund, he struck a chord with Patrick McGovern, co-founder of International Data Group (IDG). A 30-minute meeting between the two men turned into a fateful 2.5-hour session. Impressed by Walden exits like IT services company Mindtree, McGovern anchored a $150 million debut fund for the new frm in 2007, although Sethi’s proposal had only contemplated $100 million. It was a familiar model for IDG, which had lent its name to similar ventures across Asia. McGovern was highly engaged, making some 30 visits to India during the frm’s early years. A second fund closed at $95 million in 2013 and Fund II raised $225 million in 2016, including a $17 million sidecar. After McGovern’s death in 2014, IDG was acquired by IDG Capital – the China VC afliate – and China Oceanwide Holdings Group. As part of the deal, they assumed ownership of LP interests in funds managed by other LP afliates. These were then sold of to secondary investors. IDG Ventures India decided a rebrand was in order and chose Chiratae (meaning “leopard” in Bangalore language) as a way of inspiring a sense of group ownership. Several Chiratae team members, including Sethi and Prabhakar, are wildlife photography bufs, keen to translate the risk-taking, responsiveness, and agility that the hobby entails into an emerging venture industry. “We realized that we had to reinvent ourselves, because India and the entrepreneurs were reinventing themselves. It became a strategic intention being communicated to the market,” says Sethi. “The name came from our passion, and we’re doing this because of a passion to build a new India, where the goal is to build Indian brands, which not only dominate at home but also in other parts of the world.” The frm set up its headquarters in Bangalore and within two years opened a second ofce in Mumbai, which was quickly shuttered when deal fow in the city proved unpromising. A Delhi ofce followed in 2013 and another small Mumbai base was established last year, this time strictly as an investor relations exercise. Deal fow continues to fow mostly from Bangalore and Delhi. A fourth ofce in Silicon Valley is planned for next year as a way of helping larger portfolio companies go global and tapping growing interest among US-based LPs. Going local Fundraising to date comes about two-thirds from international LPs and one-third from local investors, a ratio Chiratae aims to get closer to 50-50 in the years to come. The frm has about 20 global and 50 local relationships. About 40% of the Fund III corpus was sourced from India. “We are the only VC in the top-fve in India that is raising Indian capital, so I think we believe in India much more,” Sethi adds. “But it’s not just from a money point of view. The returns will come – we’re building this frm for the long term.” The increased focus on domestic capital represents another parallel with the macro picture as India experiences a new phenomenon of high-net-worth individuals launching family ofces

ET Women’s Forum: ‘She-preneurs ask for more permission, men for more forgiveness’ VC CircleFebruary 21, 2022 The Economic Times Women’s Forum 2019 took forward the mission that it launched last year — to collaboratively and urgently build a sustainable culture of empowering India’s half a billion women — through a scintillating day of conversations and debates about encouraging greater participation and reducing gender inequality in every sphere of life, work, and play. The march of women into India’s entrepreneurial space is underway, but more opportunities, greater self belief and a higher number of role models are required for their growth in this sector, industry captains said at the ET Women’s Forum. Sudhir Sethi, founder of venture capital firm Chiratae Ventures, said that 14% of the founders of companies it has invested in are women. Two years earlier it was 9%. Saloni Malhotra, vice-president of Invest India, a partly state-owned investment promotion and facilitation agency, said 65% of the workforce is women. Anjana Reddy, CEO of Bengaluru-based fashion startup Universal Sportsbiz, said 60% of the company’s leadership team consists of women. Priyanka Gill, founder of POPxo, a digital media startup for women, said 65% of its top managers are women. Chiratae is an investor in POPxo. While the speakers agreed the overall numbers of women leaders in the sector needed to grow, success wasn’t skewed to gender per se. “I don’t think it’s gender but DNA, conditioning and how you are built,” said Gill. Nor did it specifically influence funding, said Sethi. “Capital will run after competence. If there is some affirmative action required, it must be the food chain which is early on, not at this stage,” he said. “When we set up BPOs and KPOs in small towns and villages, we used to get 100% resonance from women sometimes. Once we did it for three years, we would see men applying for the jobs, because then they considered it to be a stable, good option to work in those areas,” said Malhotra. “Scale is important. Scale is something you have to love, enjoy and live with since this is a venture-funded game. You have lovely investors who want to back you but they also want their return on investment,” said Gill, whose platform has 39 million monthly active users. Her aim is to eventually take it up to 100 million. But there are issues in the very prerequisites of entrepreneurial success: self belief and conditioning, said the speakers. “The stereotype that I see: Women ask for more permission; men ask for more forgiveness. That’s what changes the game a lot,” said Malhotra, adding men and women still sometimes have different approaches to challenging tasks. Sethi recalled a woman employee who, when offered a promotion, questioned if she was really “capable” for the post. A woman Gill had offered the post of product head, declined it because she didn’t have prior experience. The paucity of role models is an issue. “I don’t think we have too many women role models to look up to. There are a lot of issues that women in general face that a guy in the room just doesn’t understand,” said Reddy. “Female founders and CEOs build companies when women feel supported, encouraged and they are given space to grow. Change actually happens when male founders and CEOs do the same,” said Gill. But that’s changing too. “For domestic and international investors, their focus on gender diversity within the firm is very high, which is good and brings the recognition to a higher level,” said Sethi. 

11 October, 2018, New Delhi: Elawoman has raised $3 Mn in Series A funding round, led by Chiratae Ventures (Formerly IDG Ventures India) along with co-investor – Alkemi Venture Partners, a healthcare and consumption focused early growth stage fund.

Bangalore, Oct 9, 2018: IDG Ventures India, one of the country’s leading venture capital firms with over $470 m assets under advisory and a presence in 3 locations, has today announced a re-branding to Chiratae Ventures.

Health and fitness start-up Cure.fit announced today that it has raised $120 million in the series C round of funding. Led by IDG Ventures, Accel Partners and Kalaari Capital with participation from Chiratae Ventures and Oaktree Capital*,

HealthPlix will use the funds to strengthen its technology and expand its team and services in other geographical markets.

Mumbai, April 25, 2018: Emotix, a new age Indian robotics and consumer Electronics Company founded on the pillars of Artificial Intelligence, and Internet of Things has secured a $2M investment through funds advised by IDG Ventures India and YourNest.

Half of our VC exits came via domestic M&As, 40% of LP money is local : IDG’s Sethi VC CircleApril 4, 2018 Sudhir Sethi Follow-on investments outpaced new deals for most venture capital firms in 2017. IDG Ventures India was no exception. And in 2018, its follow-on investments will keep pouring as many of the firms it invested in are now growing, said founder, chairman and managing director Sudhir Sethi, in an interview with VCCircle. However, he added, the follow-on focus will not come at the cost of striking new deals. Sethi also talked about expectations from the government, attractive sectors and valuations, among other things. Excerpts: IDG Ventures India was among the top three investors last year in the venture capital space. In terms of new deals, it was the second-most active in the space. What drove investments last year for the venture capital firm and do you expect to maintain the pace this year as well? The quality of the deal flow, entrepreneurs and sectors are crucial for IDG’s investment decisions, and we find them to be positively trending. We don’t see any shortage of deals at any stage for us now. New sectors keep coming up, so last year we added fin-tech, which was a major thrust and, to that extent, we saw many companies there. IDG has invested in many companies in the fin-tech space now. IDG Ventures India made the final close for fund-raising for its third fund last year. Give us a sense of the fund-raising climate and the limited partners’ view on India? I think in the last three years, the sentiment on India has shot up. All those sitting on the fence earlier are looking at India seriously or actually putting money into funds and investing directly in India. There is no question that the sentiment has become very positive and more investors are looking at it. What could be done by the government to shore up more rupee capital? I must say that the government’s Sidbi Fund of Funds, under Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi), has kick-started a great flow of investments. Sidbi is one of our domestic limited partners and we are impressed by their professionalism. I would recommend this initiative of Sidbi be rebranded as the ‘Startup Fund of Funds’. This will gain significant recognition on a global level and benefit general partners (GPs)/fund managers here. Hence, GPs/fund managers should be enabled to say that we have a sovereign startup fund backing us. That would be like Singapore’s sovereign fund, Temasek Holdings, or Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, coming in, and giving tremendous confidence to international investors as well. IDG Ventures India is attracting more rupee capital than other venture capital firms operating within India. How is this turning out for your firm? I think we are a very local firm. We have always tried to build expertise on India. If we are not an expert on India then why would people invest in us? Fundamentally, we are an India expert firm. How have we achieved this over the last many years? First and foremost, 75% of the companies we have invested in are solving problems in India using technology. Second, of all the 14 exits, half of them have been through selling to Indian buyers. This is very unique. Third is that 40% of the capital is from India, from industrial houses. Effectively, we are a very local team. That is our expertise. We have built it through exits, investments and fund-raising. In 2017, follow-on investments outpaced new deals for most venture capital firms, including IDG Venture Partners. What are the factors behind this? The engine of follow-on investments will always hum because many companies we have invested in are now growing. It could go up this year as well. Follow-ons will always be a focus but not at the cost of striking new deals. In 2017, follow-on rounds in 17 of our companies were completed. In 2018, 30 firms in IDG’s portfolio will raise follow-on capital. We are seeing fewer Series A deals, while the number of mid-stage to end-stage deals seems to be stabilising. Is this the new normal for the Indian startup ecosystem? These are nothing but cycles. I won’t read too much into it. It only indicates that the angel investment and startup activity had taken a hit one to two years ago, which has resulted in fewer Series A deals now. However, the startup activity has picked up and we will see more Series A deals in the coming year. One has to be on a constant lookout for promising teams working on big ideas. India is about innovation and we see that increasing every day. The Budget speech highlighted venture capital and alternative investment funds, and the stakeholders were quite upbeat. The Budget promised some innovative measures for the industry. What actions should the government immediately take? The Budget has made a promise of good things to come. But I think there are certain things the government needs to look at urgently. First, the government must help shore up rupee capital in venture funds. Currently, the total quantum of rupee money coming into venture-capital- funded and private-equity- funded companies in India, compared with the dollar money, is very small. It is certainly anywhere between 5% and 10%. The message that comes is if Indians are not willing to put money in India, why would international capital be willing to invest in the country? I also don’t see the logic of the government authorising what a startup should be, to be entitled to benefits. It goes against their philosophy of minimum government but maximum governance. I think it should be a free market. There is also a host of niggling issues, such as the angel tax, which has taken more than a year to just address it. I think we need to speed up to resolve these niggling issues.  Which sectors are the most attractive at

Fund Scan: IDG Ventures India makes hay out of rising share of rupee capital VC CircleMarch 6, 2018 IDG Ventures India’s fundraising experience for its first two funds is a study in contrast. But with its third fund, the venture capital firm appeared to have found a balance as it turned to rupee capital. The move was in stark contrast to the way most of its peers raised money, but exits remained a worry, mirroring the industry story. The journey, which dates back to 2006, saw IDG Ventures India co-founder and chairman Sudhir Sethi looking to raise a $100-million early-stage venture capital fund. To begin with, the going was good. On 21 May, Sethi was scheduled to meet IDG Inc. founder and chairman, the late Patrick McGovern, at Bengaluru’s Oberoi Hotel for about half an hour. The discussions, however, went on well beyond two hours, and subsequently spilled over to the next few days. The conversations on the telephone resulted in a four-page plan by Sethi. McGovern went through it in details and, finally on 21 June, suggested that the VC firm should look at raising a $150-million fund instead of the planned $100 million. “Pat (McGovern) also said that he was keen to anchor the fund and commit the entire $150 million,” said Sethi, who had, by then, roped in his “buddy” TC Meenakshisundaram as the second co-founder. The third, Manik Arora, moved out of the firm in 2015, and Sethi had little to share about his role. The founders pressed on the gas to meet the 1 September, 2006, launch target and built a robust team around them. By the time the fund marked the final close at $150 million in February 2007, it had a host of other foreign players joining in as limited partners, besides IDG Inc.  Fast forward to 2012-13, IDG Ventures India hit the streets to raise its $175-million second fund, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The situation, however, was starkly different. According to Sethi, the VC firm had initially set out to raise a “sizable fund“, but finally had to settle for just about $95 million. The poor macro environment and absence of a showcase exit were the root cause, he said. Sethi and Meenakshisundaram realised that a change in strategy was the way forward, and shifted their focus to domestic investors. This, at a time when most of its global and homegrown peers were still dependent on foreign institutions and individuals to raise capital. With the third fund, IDG Ventures India met the targeted fund size of $200 million comfortably with domestic LPs contributing significantly to the fund. “IDG definitely has set an example among VCs to raise rupee capital. Of course, because of confidentiality issues, it would be difficult to examine each and every VC fund to find their (respective) domestic LP share base,” said an industry veteran.  The trigger The strategic shift towards domestic investors was, however, not easy. After nearly three months of scanning the domestic market, the broad feedback was “not to waste time, as domestic investors were not ready to take the plunge on such long-term assets”. But the founders were not in a mood to relent, despite the fact that some of its peers, such as Nexus Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and Kalaari Capital, formerly IndoUS Venture Partners, continued to raise sizeable amounts for their new funds. Though IDG Inc. continued to anchor the funds with significant commitment, the pressure to expand the investor base was growing, Sethi added. But despite the odds, there were a few positive signals in the domestic market as Sethi’s team continued to meet domestic investors. Finally, discussions with over 100 family offices started reaping the results with the rupee ratio of its funds slowly growing from about 20% to breach the 40% mark in the past five years. Today, IDG Ventures India counts Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, Asian Paints Family Office and Small Industries Development Bank of India as its limited partners. “Not only have they raised rupee capital, but they have been able to raise nearly 50% of their exits in rupee money, too. I think both the factors validate the coming of age of the domestic economy in the VC market,” the industry expert cited above said. He was referring to a string of exits IDG Ventures India made in the past two-and-a-half years. “I think, we need people who are focused on India. IDG is an exemplar of venture capital funds and new domestic firms should be guided by its model,” he added. Another fund manager was of the view that the capital should come from the domestic market, especially in a country like India, which is resourceful enough. International money should only be a top-up, he added. The fund manager’s views were reflected in yet another industry insider. VC firms have been forced to take international money because the culture of turning to domestic investors barely existed. But with the local market developing, not only are domestic LPs have deeper understanding of the market, they can also co-invest with it, he added. Besides, local capital is an important and significant element to drive confidence for international capital to flow world over, explained Sethi.  Focus on technology IDG Ventures India was the only venture capital player to have a 100% focus on technology right from the very outset, unlike most of its peers, which moved between tech and non-tech businesses, as the internet and mobile market was not considered deep enough a decade back. The full bias towards technology could, however, be attributed to the background of the founders. Sethi has spent his career spanning 35 years in the technology sector, starting with software services firm HCL and Wipro, where he met Meenakshisundaram 25 years ago. Sethi’s appointment as the country head of Walden International in 1998 marked his entry into the venture capital world. He led investments in IT major Mindtree Consulting and Venture Infotek in the fintech space,

Bangalore, July 25, 2016 – Quikr, India’s No. 1 cross category classifieds business, today announced that it has acquired Hiree, an online hiring platform focused on white collar jobs. Hiree which counts world’s largest IT companies and India’s highest valued startups in its customer list will be merged with its jobs vertical QuikrJobs

Financing platform Vayana Network raises $4mn in Series A funding Team YS July 17, 2017 Pune’s technology based third-party B2B trade financing platform Vayana Network has raised $4 million in Series A funding from IDG Ventures and Jungle Ventures. This follows an earlier round of investment in the company by Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings (RIIHL) and a couple of other investors, a press release from the company has stated. Vayana Network claims to have processed over Rs 4,000 crore ($600 million) in financing via nine lending partners including five banks and four NBFCs across large, medium corporate and SMEs in India so far. The equity investment will be used to further strengthen its B2B trade financing network both in India and abroad. In a press statement, RN Iyer, Founder and CEO, Vayana Network, said, “This funding comes at an exciting time with GST driving a digital invoicing ecosystem in India and in the backdrop of increasing velocity for trade-based financing led by third-party platforms globally. Our mission from day one has been to focus on designing the simplest possible process for corporate of all sizes and from different industries to avail short-term financing for their buyers and suppliers. Our special focus on trade documentation has also enabled us to play an important role in the GST regime. We plan on offering several value-added services for our clients to help them take advantage of the trade data.” Besides Bengaluru and Chennai, Pune-based Vayana also has offices in the US and Middle East. It provides tools for paying, collecting and monitoring the financial transactions for corporates as well as to retail customers. According to TC Meenakshi Sundaram, Founder and Managing Director, IDG Ventures India, Vayana Network has built a strong leadership position in the short-term trade finance space by bringing together the suppliers, buyers and the lenders on a single platform. “With its role as a GSP, Vayana is in a unique position to bring the much-needed financing to the SMEs and help them grow faster,” he said in the release. IDG Ventures, which has invested in Nestaway, and Lenskart, among others, has been proactive this year with investments in Unbxd, POPxo, m.Paani, CreditMantri, Sigtuple, and BlowHorn over the last six months. Jungle Ventures, an investor in Livspace, CrayonData, and Milaap, among others, has already invested in Wydr (Series A), Moglix (Series B), and PaySense (Series A) this year. Amit Anand, Founding Partner, Jungle Ventures, said in the release, “Like many other things India is going to leapfrog existing supply chain financing solutions. Today’s supply chains must be dynamic and as a result supply chain financing is a data and performance analytics oriented business. With years of transaction data and GSP, Vayana Network is best positioned to help banks and financial institutions capture this opportunity in a forward-looking manner.” 

The BSE 30 is under threat: IDG Ventures’ Sudhir Sethi Forbes June 14, 2017 Sudhir Sethi, founder and chairman of IDG Ventures India, on how innovation and technology are changing the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India and why new-tech companies are the gamechangers. Image: Nishant Ratnakar for Forbes India India-focussed technology venture capital fund IDG Ventures India has raised about Rs 2,600 crore over the last 10 years of which it has invested about Rs 1,700 crore in a slew of Indian startups. To date, the fund has exited from 13 startups that it had invested in, including Myntra, Lenskart, Hiree and Manthan. Sudhir Sethi, 58, founder and chairman of IDG Ventures India, tells Forbes India that he’s now betting big on “deep-tech” startups. “We are investing in technologies which will be relevant 5-7 years down the line,” he says. In a freewheeling chat, Sethi, who was a part of the launch team of HCL’s and subsequently Wipro’s computer division, shares his views on the Indian startup ecosystem, high valuations of startups and what excites him about Indian innovation. Edited excerpts:  Q. IDG Ventures India (along with Axilor Ventures) launched a Frontier Tech Innovators Programme, which would invest in and partner with new-age disruptive startups. What was the need for such a programme? The Frontier Tech programme is interesting. We saw innovations over the years, not in a wave, but in pieces. We saw them in software and medical devices. The thought of Frontier Tech came to our minds in the last three months of 2016. In India, robotics will improve and other technology will come in as well. We got in touch with TeamIndus as we loved their audacious approach to land a rover on the moon. That’s what innovation and entrepreneurship is all about. We continue to talk to them (we have not invested in them as yet). When I think of technology, I think of Artificial Intelligence (AI), virtual reality, machine language, robotics, defence/space, so we thought we will look for these companies through the Frontier Tech programme. Our internal name for the programme is ‘hatke’ technologies. In three weeks (between March and April), we saw about 455 companies. Many of them are under evaluation; we will go through the process and hopefully invest in a few of them. What excites us about India is innovation, deep technology, the ability of an entrepreneur to take risks and also the high quality of entrepreneurs. I have been investing in India since 1998 and these four things haven’t changed. In fact, they have accelerated. If I look at our first investment under the IDG banner, it was a software company called Manthan Software Services, which was into analytics for the retail sector. We invested in 2007 from our first fund and we exited fully in 2014 with a handsome return. In 2008, we invested in Perfint, which was into medical robotics. It’s the first medical device company from India to get FDA approval in China (the only company I know of to have achieved that), USA as well as in 12 other countries. We are still invested in them. We have also invested in a company called Forus Health, which is in the space of ophthalmology device, which enables retina scans. They have done over a million scans so far.  Q. How different are these companies, which you are looking at through the programme, to your portfolio of investments so far? They are very different. We have 62 companies under our portfolio of which 50 are active. The portfolio is a mix of internet, media, ecommerce, software, health care and financial technology startups. That said, we believe that the exit timeframes, which used to be many years, have now come down. We are able to now sell a very high-tech company in two years in India. In the last two-and-a-half years, we sold Pluss [hyperlocal medicine delivery startup] to Netmeds.com, Hiree [online recruitment firm] to Quikr; we have just completed the sale of Zimmber to Quikr and we sold Momoe [mobile payments app] to ShopClues. In two-and-a-half years, from the date of investment, the companies got sold. Fundamentally, these companies were not bought for scale, but for technology which the buyer didn’t have. So, we have seen that buyers from India are recognising technology and the missing product gap in their own product profile and are willing to buy. That never happened before. There’s a shift that has happened in the market, which is anecdotal in nature, and not planned for by us. Investors like us want to be ahead of the curve and by doing so, our investments can get more returns.  Q. Could you elaborate on how ‘exit timeframes’ have come down? If I look at the last 10 years, the exit cycles are reducing. In Myntra and Manthan Software Services, our exit cycle was seven years. We just exited Fintellix and I think that was five years. If we look at some of the exits which are in process, they would be after 5-8 years. As India scales, I think exit timeframes would reduce even more. It would be about 5-6 years as we move forward, which is very healthy. By design, our exit valuations are between $100 million and $500 million. We don’t have too many unicorns to have exits at billion-dollar valuations. If we want our investments to work, we can’t wait for a billion-dollar valuation to happen in all cases. Those would be exceptions; those also need a lot of luck. Q. Speaking of unicorns, are some in India seeing a correction in their valuations? From a capital supply point of view, last year, the total private equity/venture capital funding in the country was about $12 billion. It was $17-18 billion the year before and $10-11 billion in its preceding year. Broadly, India has been absorbing private equity/venture capital funding of around $10 billion, plus or minus. In the middle, a few years ago, it spiked to $17-18 billion a year. It was

m.Paani, mass-market consumer and retailer data and loyalty company, raises $1.35m in a round led by IDG Ventures India, Blume Ventures & Saha Fund

IDG Ventures India launches the Frontier Tech Innovators Program #FTIP2017 in partnership with Axilor Ventures

Rentomojo Raises $2 million in Pre Series A from Accel Partners and IDG Ventures India

New Delhi, 4th November 2015: POPxo, India’s first and fastest-growing community for young women, has raised $2 million in Series A funding. The investment round was led by IDG Ventures India and Kalaari Capital, with participation from 500 Startups.

Lenskart to gain out of Premji Invest’s extensive experience across retail brands The funding comes three months after IFC’s 400 crore investment in the brand

May 26, 2016: Little Black Book, a media-tech enterprise based out of New Delhi, has raised $1.2 million from IDG Ventures India and Indian Angel Network. Reaching out to over 1 million users every month, Little Black Book is currently available in Delhi and Bangalore

New Delhi & Bengaluru May 16, 2016: Leading tech-focused venture capital firm IDG Ventures India has launched a Digital Consumer Innovators Program to provide assistance to startups across consumer technology and digital media space

Bangalore, 10 May 2016: India’s leading mobile health and fitness startup HealthifyMe, today, announced Series A funding of US$6 million led by IDG Ventures India, Inventus Capital and Blume Ventures. The funding comes just a year after they announced their

Mumbai, February 10th, 2016: Online marketplace for recruitment, Aasaanjobs recently raised $5 million in Series A round of funding led by Aspada Advisors with participation from existing investors. This was a follow-up from the seed round where the platform

Mumbai, November 3, 2015:Cityflo, India’s largest and fastest-growing bus-aggregation startup, has raised a seed round of $750,000 led by IDG Ventures. Mumbai, November 3

Bangalore, September 09, 2015: India’s leading technology venture capital firm IDG Ventures India announced that Mr. Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, has joined their advisory board as a Senior Advisor.

Bangalore, May 18, 2015: myNoticePeriod.com, the company that pioneered just-in-time hiring and revolutionized recruitment in India, has rebranded itself as Hiree.com. The company has acquired 800+ paid customers in less than a year.

March 18, 2015 New Delhi: Online travel community company, Tripoto, has raised its second round of funding led by IDG Ventures India. Existing investors Outbox Ventures also participated in the round. Karan Mohla from IDG Ventures India would be joining

Nestaway is India’s first “managed home rental” marketplace attempting to provide better rental solutions via design and technology to singles in the cities. It turns unbranded, unfurnished houses into fully furnished & managed apartments and provide them at affordable prices to pre-verified tenants.

myNoticePeriod.com raises INR 18 crores from IDG Ventures. It had earlier raised over INR 2 crores from individual angel investors and IDG Ventures, in September 2014.

February 2, 2015: Valiant Capital Partners, led a $26 million Series D investment into Brainbees Solutions Pvt Ltd, which owns the ‘FirstCry.com’ brand, India’s #1 baby and kids focused e-commerce site. San Francisco-headquartered Valiant Capital,

Bengaluru, December 29, 2014. Bengaluru-based SuperProfs.com, a product of Aurus Network, has raised $3 Million from venture capital firms Kalaari Capital and IDG Ventures India. This round of funding will be used for scaling up its product offerings

Bangalore, 4 September 2014:
India’s fastest growing recruitment startup myNoticePeriod.com announced that it has raised over 2 Crores in Seed Round funding, led by IDG Ventures India. Other investors include Prashant Kirtane, CTO and co-founder of travelmob.com, Shamsunder

Mumbai, July 28, 2014: Peel-Works, the leading SaaS and big-data analytics company enabling sales-force & traditional trade transformation, has raised a Series A round of $2 million from Inventus Capital Partners and IDG Ventures India.

New Delhi, April 16, 2014: Yatra Online Travel Pvt. Ltd. (‘Yatra’), one of India’s largest online travel companies, today announced a Rs 140 crores funding round led by new investors IDG Ventures and Vertex Venture Management Pte. Ltd.

Newgen Software, a leading global provider of Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Customer Communication Management (CCM) solutions has raised equity capital from IDG Ventures India and Ascent Capital

January 21, 2014: Vertex Venture Management, through one of its funds, led a $15 million Series C investment into Brainbees Solutions Pvt Ltd, which owns the ‘FirstCry.com’ brand, India’s #1 baby and kids focused e-commerce site.

Heckyl Technologies Pvt. Ltd has raised over $3.5 million in Series B investment led by IDG Ventures India. Existing investors Seedfund Advisors also participated in the round. Seedfund Advisors had invested $1mn in the start-up in the first round.

Bangalore, 11th December 2013: Zivame.com, India’s largest lingerie destination has received a Series B Funding Investment of $6 million. This round has been raised from Unilazer Ventures Private Limited, a strategic private equity investments company promoted

Theramyt, a niche Bangalore-based, bio-pharma enterprise, has raised significant funding to pursue its goal of developing treatment-altering biological drugs.

Bangalore – October 10, 2013. Unbxd, a leading product recommendation platform for eCommerce companies, today announced that it has raised USD 2 Million in its Series A round of funding, from venture capital funds, IDG Ventures India and Inventus

Spotlight on Enterprise
With over a decade’s experience of investing in early stage technology, we know that selling software to an enterprise can be difficult. But not when you know what’s on the top of a CIO’s mind.

Bangalore, March 14, 2012: Zivame.com, India’s premium online lingerie store, announced series A funding from IDG Ventures and Indo-US Venture Partners.

February 13, 2012: IDG Ventures India led a $14 million Series B investment into Brainbees Solutions Pvt Ltd., which owns the FirstCry.com and GoodLife.com brands, India’s #1 babycare and #1 beauty e-commerce sites respectively.

Bangalore, India — May 11, 2011
DG Ventures India and Sequoia Capital today announced an investment of $5 million each in Sourcebits, the global leader for consumer and enterprise mobile app development.

New Delhi, October 31, 2011: Valyoo Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs the leading eyewear e-commerce site Lenskart.com, has raised $4 million in the first round of funding from IDG Ventures India. Lenskart.com is India’s first and only online portal selling prescription eyewear

Chennai, October 9, 2011: IDG Ventures India has invested an undisclosed but large sum of money in eShakti.com – backing the unique value proposition of this leading brand of customized women’s apparel in the American market. eShakti.com

Mumbai, July 19th, 2011: Vserv, the leader in Mobile In-App Advertising in India, announced today that it has closed $3 Million in Series A funding by IDG Ventures India. Vserv is a leading mobile advertising network focused on emerging markets having

Delhi, May 11th, 2011: iProf Learning Solutions India Pvt., Ltd. today announced an investment by Kaplan Ventures and a distribution partnership with Kaplan Test Prep to enable the iProf platform to offer test preparation in GMAT® and GRE®

Tablet Based e-Learning Marketplace Company Enables Anytime-Anywhere-Any Pace Top Quality Interactive Education for targeted 25 Million Indian Students; iProf Ties Up with IGNOU, World’s Largest Distance Learning University with 3.2 Million Students

Mumbai, 2nd May, 2011 Indian BFSI software products company, Agile Financial Technologies (www.agile-ft.com), announces the successful completion of its US$ 5.7mn Series A financing, led by IDG Ventures India (IDGVI). This funding will enable Agile Financial Technologies (Agile FT)

Bangalore, January 28, 2010: iCreate Software (www.icreate.in), a Bangalore-based Business Intelligence company focused on Banking products & solutions, today announced the successful completion of a Series A round of financing of Rs. 15 crores.

Bangalore, October 14, 2009: Apalya Technologies, a Hyderabad based company providing India’s No.1 Mobile Video platform, announced funding of US$ 3 million from IDG Ventures India and Qualcomm Ventures. Mumbai Angels, a leading angel investment

Leading global VC fund managing $3.7B conducts its global review in India

Tuesday May 19, 2009, Bangalore: IDG Ventures family of funds from across five countries- China, India, Vietnam, South Korea and USA held their annual global review meeting for

Bangalore, March 13, 2009: In a bid to provide access to entrepreneurial, technology and financial resources in one place to accelerate the success of high-potential technology startups, IDG Ventures India and Microsoft India today announced an Early Stage

Bangalore, November 4, 2008: Myntra.com, India’s leading platform for personalized products and gifts and a company which pioneered the on-demand personalization space in India, today announced receiving an investment of $5 mn.

Mumbai, July 2, 2008: IDG Ventures India, a $150 Million early-stage technology venture capital fund, announced today its Series A investment in Ozone Media, India’s leading online advertising network. As part of the investment, Manik Arora and Ritesh Banglani

Aujas – The Journey of an Entrepreneur in Residence at IDG Ventures India

March 27, 2008: IDG Ventures India today announced that Kiran Karnik, Ex- President, NASSCOM and a recipient of the Padma Shri joins IDG Ventures India on their Global Advisory Board which is constituted of icons like Dr. N Balasubramanian, Dr.K B Chandrasekhar, Mr. Arjun Malhotra, Dr. Sridhar Mitta, Dr. Jagdish Sheth and Dr. V Sumantran.

Bangalore, February 13, 2008: IDG Ventures India, a $150 Million early-stage technology venture capital fund, today announced its investment of $3 million in Aujas Networks Pvt. Ltd., a pure-play Digital Security services startup. Bangalore based Aujas will address a global security services market currently over $17 billion in