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|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Bahrain Development Bank [BDB] announced that the Al Waha Fund of Funds has successfully closed its $100 million fundraising round, making it the first active venture capital fund of funds in the region. The announcement marks an important milestone for the region’s growing startup ecosystem. It will provide additional capital to innovative and technology-driven startups in Bahrain and across the Middle East through venture capital funds currently established in Bahrain, and by attracting new funds to the region.

Image Source – Startups

The Limited Partners [LP] Advisory Committee met for the first time last week to close the US $100 million, setting the strategic direction of the fund, and approved the allocation of $35 million into a series of venture funds. The LPs include Mumtalakat, National Bank of Bahrain, Batelco Group, Tamkeen and Bahrain Development Bank, amongst others and where BDB is the GP managing the fund.

Commenting on the announcement, Shaikh Mohammed bin Essa Al Khalifa, Chairman, Al Waha Fund of Funds Advisory Committee, said

We are very pleased to announce the successful closure of the fund and we have already made encouraging progress in allocating the capital raised. One of the key constraints on the development of the startup and technology ecosystem in the region is lack of access to capital – this fund can help to make a significant difference to that challenge, enabling entrepreneurs to realize the potential of their ideas.

The announcement follows the launch of the Al Waha Fund of Funds at Gateway Gulf Forum last month. Gateway Gulf Forum, brought together more than five hundred global investors and business leaders to explore how to unlock the opportunities being created by the economic transformation in the GCC.

Bahrain’s startup ecosystem has benefitted from a number of significant initiatives and reforms in recent years, as part of the Economic Vision 2030, delivered under the leadership of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and Chairman of the Bahrain Economic Development Board [EDB]. These include a reduction in the minimum capital required for starting a business, measures to enable onshore crowdfunding in conventional and shari’a-compliant finance and the introduction of a regulatory sandbox.

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

ah! Ventures, one of the key players in the Indian start-up space, is taking a big stride forward in the Indian alternative investment universe by playing a key supporting role to India’s largest gathering of family offices,  business families, private investors, investment professionals, limited partners, alternative investment funds and private wealth professionals at the upcoming 5th Annual Family Office Summit India [FOSI2017], scheduled at Hotel Taj Lands End in Mumbai on September 6 and at Hotel Shangri La in Delhi on September 8.

Image Source – Family Office Summit

FOSI12017 is its 5th year and is being organized by the Association of International Wealth Management of India [AIWMI] – the pioneer in the family office and wealth education in the country.

With over 400 Ultra and High Net-Worth Individuals and Family Office Executives every year, the Family Office Summit India is the country’s largest wealth management & family office event held annually in Mumbai. This prestigious conference provides an annual meeting place for the Indian High Net-Worth Families, Single Family Offices, Private Investors and Thought Leaders. The conference’s continuing success since its inception testifies to the coming-of- age of Indian family office community and the need for an effective cross-learning and networking forum.

This prestigious Summit, year after year has presented a prolific forum to uncover how wealthy families are handling many of their most pressing issues and challenges including their key objectives, investment styles and management of philanthropic activities, as well as encouraging the next generation, compensating executives, retaining trusted employees and more.

In India the ranks of the wealthy are expanding albeit at varying paces depending on the region and the business sector. As the number of ultra-high- net-worth families proliferates, so are the single and multi-family offices designed to serve them. With this sudden surge, an education & networking gathering like FOSI has become a necessity for all the stakeholders.

As is the case every year, the agenda of FOSI17 has been designed by family offices for family offices and it deals exclusively with specific topics for UHNWI and Family Offices, with a focus on Family Governance, Family Office Operations, Investments & Philanthropy. FOSI17 will continue to explore the best ways to map out their portfolios with a wide variety of investment topics including property investing, private equity, and impact investing as well as risk management and mitigation. Through an eclectic mix of keynote addresses, panel discussions, case studies and showcases this event will provide its delegates thought-provoking insights and best practice tips in the industry.

Launch of ‘Priwexus’ – FOSI2017 will witness the launch of Priwexus- the membership forum for Indian Single Family Offices and business families being set up by AIWMI.  Priwexus will be an exclusive, by-invite membership forum focusing on various areas of interests of prominent business families like family office, family governance, succession planning, investments, gen-nex education etc.

Promise of a Dynamic Flow of Events

Akin to the success of the preceding summits in the years 2013 to 2016, this summit promises to bring more to the table. The CEO of the Association of International Wealth Management of India, Aditya Gadge has said

Indian Family Office segment has grown significantly over the last few years. With more than 90 SFO and 25 MFOs in the country today, this segment  is just about to take off.  We expect these numbers to be more than 5 times over the next couple of years.

This is the second year ah! Ventures is participating in this Summit and as one of the major stakeholders in the Indian alternative investment space is expected to add a lot of value to the content and proceedings.  CLUB ah! comprises over 200 potential investors with investment power ranging from USD 100,000 to USD 1 million each.

Members of ah! Ventures shall receive an exclusive discount of 20% on the ticket by using the promo code: FOSI17. Delegate registrations are now open on the Family Office Summit site

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Trend Micro, a global leader in cyber-security solutions, have announced the launch of a corporate venture fund to explore emerging technology markets. With an initial investment of $100 million, this venture fund will allow Trend Micro to nurture a portfolio of startups that are incubating ideas and living at the epicenter of hyper growth markets, such as the Internet of Things [IoT]. According to Gartner estimates, 26 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020.

Eva Chen, Founder and CEO for Trend Micro noted

Trend Micro’s vision has always been to make the world safe for exchanging digital information. The explosion of devices is transforming how the world works, thinks and acts. It is clear that the ecosystem is still evolving and there is work to do to ensure organizations and individuals can operate and live safely in this new reality.

Trend Micro’s venture will offer companies financial backing, access to its world-class global threat intelligence, strategic alliances, as well as its channel of more than 28,000 partners. In return, working with these investments will uncover insights into emerging ecosystem opportunities, disruptive business models, market gaps and skillset shortages. These learnings will influence Trend Micro’s cyber-security solution planning across the company.

Eva Chen, Founder and CEO for Trend Micro added

We have a 29-year history of successfully anticipating technology trends to secure all types of environments. The first mega wave we caught was the growth of the PC marketplace; we committed early on to endpoint protection and remain a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms today. The second mega wave was all about the cloud; we made a bet early on to securing the cloud and so far we have secured over two billion workload hours on Amazon Web Services [AWS] alone. Now, we believe the next wave has arrived with IoT; our fund will help us harness this opportunity.

With a strong financial position and 72 quarters of consecutive profitability, Trend Micro is well positioned to invest funds to do research and make advancements consistent with its corporate strategy. The formation of this venture arm allows additional freedom to dive into new areas without disrupting core business resources. 

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cyber-security solutions, helps to make the world safe for exchanging digital information.  Their innovative solutions for consumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for data centers, cloud environments, networks, and endpoints. With over 5,000 employees in over 50 countries and the world’s most advanced global threat intelligence, Trend Micro enables organizations to secure their journey to the cloud.  For more information, please visit Trend Micro

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

News Corp VCCEdge, India’s leading publisher of alternative investment, deals and startup news, data and information and part of globally diversified media, education and information services group, News Corp, has today released its India Quarterly Deals report for Q1 CY2017.

Capturing funding deal activities encompassing private equity, venture capital, angel/seed investment transactions for the seventeen quarters ending March 2017, the report also offers information on mergers and acquisitions with sector and region-wise analysis.

Highlights of the News Corp VCCEdge India Quarterly Deals report

PE Investments see a sober start to the year

  • 238 deals worth $3.04 bn in Q1, CY2017 vis-a-vis 432 deals worth USD 4.19 billion in Q1, CY 2016.
  • Median deal value quadrupled to USD 2.25 million for Q1, 2017 compared to USD 0.6 million in Q1, 2016.
  • Angel investments at a 4-year low at USD 28 million with VC investments dropping by 14% YoY.
  • The top PE deal for the quarter was the Bharti Infratel-KKR, CPPIB deal which at USD 946 million pushed up the average deal value.

Fund infusion sees better times though investors tread cautiously

  • Investment values doubled against last quarter to USD 820 million for Q1 CY2017, though this was a fraction of the USD 2,500 million for Q1 CY2016.
  • There were no fresh investments of USD 250 million or more from investors, this quarter.
  • The top four fund infusions involving Oman India Joint Investment Fund II, KKR India Credit Fund, ICICI Venture Fund Management’s India Advantage Fund Series IV and IDFC Private Equity Fund IV captured a major share of total funds at USD 641 million.

Ominous times for PE funds as exit values fall

  • YoY, the situation seems grim with exits having fallen to USD 1.4 billion for Q1 CY2017 vis-a-vis USD 2.1 billion for the same quarter last year
  • Open markets dominated exit deal values at USD 945 million, bouncing back as the preferred exit route
  • Key exits recorded for the quarter were the Providence Equity Partners-Idea Cellular deal and the Khazanah Nasional Berhad-Apollo Hospitals deal.

Delhi NCR continues to rule the roost

  • At USD 1,246 million, Delhi saw more action this quarter than Mumbai [USD 692 million] and Bangalore [USD 441 million] put together.
  • Information Technology continued to dominate the space in Delhi NCR with 29 deals in the sector followed by 9 deals in Consumer Discretionary and 4 each in Consumer Staples and Industrials.
  • Coming second in terms of deal value was Mumbai with 47 deals amounting to USD 692 million, with Information Technology leading the way with 23 deals followed by Consumer Discretionary with  7 deals and Financials at 6 deals.
  • Bengaluru registered 53 deals amounting to USD 441 million with close to 60% being in the Information Technology space and ~19% in the Consumer Discretionary space. Pune with 8 deals to the tune of USD 62 million and Hyderabad with 18 deals amounting to USD 32 million made it to the top-5 investment destinations of India.

Vodafone-Idea deal dominates M&A space

  • M&A deal numbers came in at 226 as opposed to 237 for the last quarter, with the trend of a few large deals contributing to the total value continuing.
  • Of the total of USD 16 billion deal value for Q1 CY2017, the Vodafone-Idea deal saw a majority deal value of USD 12.4 billion.
  • Low median value across deals in the past 5 quarters vis-a-vis higher average deal values indicate a larger number of small ticket transactions in the space.
  • The Electronic Components space saw 3 deals followed by Wireless Telecommunications and Pharmaceuticals at 2 each.

Sharing her views on the News Corp VCCEdge India Quarterly Deals report, Nita Kapoor, Head India-New Ventures, News Corp & CEO, News Corp VCCircle said

PE sentiment seems to be extremely cautious and this is clearly reflecting in market performance. Appetite for risk is low with consolidation, job cuts and rollback of funding plans underway. A dip of 22% in deal values with simultaneous decline in exit figures is worrisome, though these are early days and a bounce back is possible, if not probable in the immediate future.

About VCCEdge

VCCEdge is an online financial research platform of the VCCircle Network which is owned by the global diversified media, news, education and information services company – News Corp. VCCEdge offers information on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital transactions including deal terms, structures, deal amounts and valuations. It also contains entity information on all companies involved in the transactions including target companies, investors and advisors. For more information, please visit VCCEdge

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Even as the Indian start-up ecosystem has enjoyed the best period in the last couple of years in terms of fundraising and getting global attention, starting-up is still not a cake-walk for many entrepreneurs. Considering the challenges associated while starting a company, ah! Ventures has created a marketplace that will provide startups with all kind of services right from creating a brand identity to hiring right kind of talent.

The ah! Marketplace, a unique platform, will help connect the start-ups to find relevant service providers at every step of their entrepreneurial journey.  The platform works on a model wherein accredited service providers from various realms like technology, legal advisory, design, content, finance, HR, etc offer their services to the enterprises looking for those.

The core proposition of this platform is not just to be a marketplace but to be a platform wherein every transaction is monitored and regulated. Every transaction between the parties is based upon a pre-decided package and the payments involved are thoroughly regulated by ah! Ventures. It is only after the successful delivery of the services that the payment processed. This feature is a game changer in a world where the start-ups interact with service providers unknown to them. It assures the entrepreneurs a fair deal with guaranteed services at customized one-time, annual or life-time packages.

Commenting on the need for a product like this, Harshad Lahoti, Founder and CEO of ah! Ventures, opined

Given the experience of being an active investing entity in the entrepreneurial eco-system of India, I believe that one of the key factors behind an idea becoming a successful enterprise is taking the right business decisions at the right time. Be it a branding overhaul or a technological innovation, it is these offerings that make the customer experience unique. With the launch of this marketplace, ah! Ventures aims to cut down on the time enterprises waste in finding the right partners and focus on bettering their core service offering.

Currently the platform is live with some of the niche service providers like PitchWorx, a creative design company offering Design, Presentation and Video Packages; Pronto Infotech offering Technology Resource Packages;ah! Ventures itself with its Investor Network offerings among others. There are a number of other service providers lined up to go live in a short while.

Commenting on offering viable solutions to startups, Abhijeet Kumar, Co-founder of ah! Ventures & Pronto Infotech said

In the nascent stages, start-ups have to be cost effective and yet they have to simultaneously focus on being technologically innovative. We truly understand the conundrum of such start-ups and hence Pronto Infotech is collaborating with ah! Ventures to offer holistic technological solutions to such deserving enterprises. These bundled monthly packages help the entrepreneurs follow a monetarily lean model. With such packages, we intend to extend high quality yet feasible options to entrepreneurs who wish to make it big in this startup world.

Dharmendra Ahuja, the Founder & CEO of PitchWorx-a creative design studio, understands the importance of getting access to the right pitching tools at the right time.

Commenting on offering PitchWorx services to the evolving entrepreneurs, Dharmendra Ahuja opined

Being an entrepreneur is every individual’s dream. Be it an investor presentation, an animated explainer video or even your website-we believe everything is a pitch! Having worked with more than 100 start ups and a number of global corporations we understand how important it is to pitch a business perfectly. Thanks to today’s booming visual content trends, we have been successful in helping startups captivate their audiences with a visually compelling story – every time! We are excited to be part of the ah! Ventures marketplace as a startup service provider in the creative design space.

Since its inception in 2012, ah! Ventures, spearheaded by Founder and CEO Harshad Lahoti and Co-Founder Abhijeet Kumar, has crossed numerous milestones. With an extensive network of 850+ investors, 17000 entrepreneurs and a over 100 crores of investment raised till date, ah! Ventures has strived to be the best guiding hand for the all the players in this ecosystem. With the launch of this unique marketplace, ah! Ventures is creating a positive disruption in a startup ecosystem which is in dire need of a service like this.

Startups looking for quality accredited Service Providers log on to ah! Marketplace. Service Providers looking to empanel, drop us a mail at marketplace@ahventures.in

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

YouWeCan Ventures, the investment company founded by cricketer Yuvraj Singh, has become a Limited Partner [LP] in a film and media-focused venture capital fund following investment of an undisclosed amount in the new investment vehicle.

The investment company, which started operations in April, will be an anchor investor in the Securities and Exchange Board of India-approved Media Fund, promoted by Mumbai-based DAR Media Private Limited, which has produced a number of critically and commercially acclaimed films such as The Lunchbox

YouWeCan

This will be the early-stage investor’s first investment in a fund, a departure from its strategy of making direct investments in ventures.

Speaking about the association, Nishant Singhal, co-founder of YouWeCan Ventures said

We are fascinated with work done by DAR Group in Indian cinema space. We will be working with the fund to develop sports and youth-oriented genre for both domestic and international audience over the next five years.

The Rs 100-crore Media Fund, which has a green-shoe option of an additional Rs 100 crore, has already received commitments of Rs 60 crore, and will co-invest in projects. Yuvraj Singh will come on board as a director of the asset management firm.

Arun Rangachari, chairman, DAR Capital Group said

The Media Fund will not have an exposure to more than 25% of the total project. The fund will invest in 11 projects in its first round, and has already identified projects for its pipeline of investments.

Till date, YouWeCan Ventures has announced four investments in startups, including in Moovo, a Delhi-based on-demand logistics booking platform, Gurgaon-based online healthcare marketplace Healthians.com, education services marketplace EduKart and mobile app platform Vyomo

About YouWeCan Ventures

YouWeCan is a 50 CR seed fund that is created to empower young entrepreneurs on their journey to build brands and successful business ventures and improve the life standard of society. More information at their website.

Image Credit – pixr8

|In: Entrepreneurship|Last Updated:

BITS Pilani’s Annual Startup Conclave – Conquest is back with it’s 2015 Edition. Conquest has had ten successive editions over the past and this year, the model has been revamped to make it even more grand. Last edition of Conquest saw around 2000 applications from all over India. Conquest provided a platform to support our teams raise millions of dollars of investment upon completion of the Grand Finale held at FICCI Auditorium, New Delhi.

Conquest_Conclave

Highlights of Conquest 2015

  • Close to 2000 applicants would be fighting it out to win the challenge.
  • Last year 3.5 Lakhs equity-less cash was handed over to the winners of Conquest. However in this edition, along with the equity-less cash, winners would also get $1 million worth CRM and other support services.
  • Freshmentors, an online mentoring platform that was backed with angel investment of Rs 1 crore in 2014 would  seek personalized mentoring on college admissions and their careers via live video chats. It caters to its customers with the help of over 300 mentors spread across 150 foreign universities.
  • The short-listing process of the top 50 startups would be done by a panel of Investors and mentors.

Some of the jury members include:

  1. Rohit Bansal, Co-founder Snapdeal
  2. Amit Ranjan, Co-founder of Slideshare
  3. Ankur Warikoo, CEO of Groupon India
  4. Alok Kejriwal, Founder & CEO of Games2Win
  5. Dev Khare of Lightspeed Ventures &
  6. Rajesh Sawhney, Founder of the GSF Accelerator & GSF Superangels

For providing comprehensive feedback to all the applicants of Conquest,2015; they have partnered with Applyifi, a private platform for startups to create a comprehensive pitch-book & thereafter apply to multiple investors or accelerators/incubators.

How to apply for Conquest,2015

  • Registrations for Conquest are open from 31st March & would be open through the month of April. Registrations would close on 1st May.
  • The list of 50 short-listed startups would be announced in the month of June.
  • Any startup which was registered after 1st Jan 2013 is eligible to participate in Conquest 2015.
  • Startups can register at Conquest website. Applicant has the option of saving his form & filling it at any time before the registration closes.

The networking sessions meant to connect every startup with their mentor will be held in 5 cities namely Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai in the month of July.

Previous winners of Conquest

Some of the success stories of previous editions of Conquest are listed below:

  1. I-Traveller – Runners-up, 2013
  2. Solar Town – Runners-up, 2012
  3. PosterGully  – Finalist, 2012
  4. Phyzok – Winner, 2011
  5. GharPay – Runners-up, 2011
  6. iViz Security – Winner, 2006
  7. Mobile Medics – Winner, 2005

The title sponsor of the event is DCB Bank.

Startups, please make the most of this opportunity & head over to Conquest website for registration & more details.

* We would update this post once we receive more details from the Organization Team of Conquest. Stay Tuned !!! Please leave a comment in case any information on Conquest is required.

Image Credit  – Conquest