I am starting a new section for my blog. Every Monday, I will share my favorite early-stage startups that have raised money (i.e., <Series C) in the last week.
This exercise is a win-win on several levels:
- It helps me develop the right habit of reviewing deals that took place last week.
- I am going to write this blog every Monday so that the news is fresh and relevant.
- It offers perspective to the founders (that read my blog) on the themes that I find interesting; therefore, I expect (fingers crossed) to create a new deal sourcing mechanism!
- I’ll attempt to connect the start-ups I discover here, with the start-ups in my portfolio; it opens up the possibility that both startups could work together for mutual benefit
Several platforms provide weekly reports on funding news, but I am going to concentrate on YourStory, Inc42*, and Tracxn. These three sources offer the best-researched information on Indian start-ups; therefore, if I utilize all three, there are remote chances of missing out on exciting funding news.
- Svami – $1 million
I learned about Svami from my friend and co-investor, Nikunj Shah. A month back, he was raving out about Svami when we met at our offices. At that time I regretted it was too late for AVF to get into the company as the deal was beyond the fund’s investment mandate. Even then, I continue to track the venture, that just raised a $1m round led by Rukam Capital Trust.Svami team’s branding strategy and their passion for their product is something that other D2C brands could emulate. They have opened up a blue ocean in the premium beverages space with their tonic waters. I recognize that I may have a bias on Svami as I see synergies in distributing their drinks through Daalchini’s smart temperature-controlled vending machines, or through VistaRooms’ to the luxury home rental’s customers.
- myHQ – $1.50 million
I am personally extremely bearish on the coworking/co-living space. My pessimism stems from the numerous co-working pitches that I have heard from the founder, real estate groups, and family offices. Each of them claims that they will achieve a pole position in the coworking space within the next 3-4 years with 1 million seats. Unfortunately, when I hear this promise so many times and from so many people that it is easy to see the space over-capacity and low realizations in the future for this space.What concerns me the most is that none of these promising founding teams has kept tabs on the number of seats their competition is building. I suspect that in the next 12-18 months, there will be a slew of shutdowns consolidation and belt-tightening.If I am this negative on the space, then it is a pertinent question as to why have I put this round led by India Quotient on this list?
What aroused my interest is the Work Cafes model on the myHQ site. While not precisely similar, it reminds me of the Anticafé model that I saw in several places in Paris. Their concept is simple. They charge their users by the hour that includes food and drinks effectively, making it a coworking café. I found the idea intriguing enough to attempt incubating the idea in-house but could not find the right people to get it going.Therefore I chose myHQ because of the Work Café model because, in my opinion, it is an idea worth exploring!
- Perfios – $50 million
It is difficult to call a 12-year-old company a “start-up,” but I like Perfios’ tech stack that makes credit assessment, monitoring, aggregation, and fraud detection easier for banks and NBFCs.As an early investor in Karza Technologies, I understand and appreciate the pain point addressed by Perfios, and it is the leader in its space. The new round led by BVP and Warburg, the company, shall be utilized to expand Perfios’ geographic reach and to make acquisitions. I believe that Perfios and Karza could provide a killer product for banks and NBFCs if they worked together as the former utilizes company data to make assessments and Karza uses proprietary databases for the same.
- WMall – 64 crores
I am intrigued by the influencer marketing and social commerce space, and WMall offers the best of both worlds. As an early investor in Coutloot, I have followed this space for the past few years, and it will be interesting to see who will dominate this space.
*I am an investor in Inc42 through Artha India Ventures
