homebusiness Newscompanies NewsZomato backer Blume Ventures closes its largest ever fund at over $250 million
Zomato-backer Blume Ventures closes its largest-ever fund at over $250 million
With the launch of the new fund, the firm's assets under management has surged over $600 million with support from Indian family offices, global family offices, sovereign wealth funds (India and overseas), and emerging market Fund of Funds.
Zomato & Unacademy-backer Blume Ventures sets up its largest-ever fund, announcing the close of Fund IV at over $250M. The venture capital fund has been an early-stage investor more than 100 startups, including unicorns Spinny, Purplle, Slice and the now-listed Zomato. Fund IV looks to back 30-35 technology-driven startups.
With the launch of the new fund, the firm's assets under management has surged over $600 million with support from Indian family offices, global family offices, sovereign wealth funds (India and overseas), and emerging market Fund of Funds.
"It has been satisfying to see the brand scale and be able to raise a fund size that is finally commensurate to its needs and more so when there is an overall gloom around fundraising and liquidity globally," said Ashish Fafadia, Partner, Blume Ventures.
One of India's earliest home-grown micro venture capital funds, Blume Ventures raised $20 million in Fund I and invested in over 60 startups, including Purplle, Grey Orange, Turtlemint, Carbon Clean, Exotel, Cashify, Zopper, Webengage, and IDfy.
With two successor funds between 2015 and 2019 — Fund II ($60 million ) and Fund III ($102 million) — Blume Ventures went onto back Unacademy, Slice, Spinny, dunzo, Classplus, Servify, Lambdatest, Koo, Locus, Healthifyme, smallcase, Euler, Jai Kisan and Pixxel, amongst others.
Blume Fund IV will be managed by investment team led by Sajith Pai, Arpit Agarwal, Ashish Fafadia, Sanjay Nath and Karthik Reddy. The fund's investment mandate covers edtech, fintech, health, commerce and consumer internet, robotics, artificial intelligence, SaaS and enterprise software.
Besides the above mentioned funds, Blume Ventures manages 'continuity' funds, which include secondary funds (Fund I winners), opportunity funds (Fund I and II winners) and SPVs.
"Thanks to an increasing reality of IPO and M&A exits, there is a resurgence of 2x founders and operators, as well as higher quality first-time founders. We’re excited for Blume to become the preferred seed partner of choice for both categories,” said Sanjay Nath, Partner, Blume Ventures.
Blume's Fund-IV follows rapid India-dedicated fundraises this year by some of the largest early-to-growth stage investors including Sequoia Capital, Accel, and Matrix Partners, which has resulted in over $16 billion worth of drypowder ready to be deployed over the next 15-18 months.
Also Read: Byju’s seeks easier terms on its $1.2 billion loan amid steep losses and cost cutting targets
First Published: Dec 7, 2022 2:36 PM IST
Check out our in-depth Market Coverage, Business News & get real-time Stock Market Updates on CNBC-TV18. Also, Watch our channels CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz and CNBC Bajar Live on-the-go!
Stampede-like situation disrupts Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav's joint rally in Uttar Pradesh
May 19, 2024 4:26 PM
Ladakh Lok Sabha election: With Independent candidate's entry, it's now a 3-way contest for BJP and Congress
May 19, 2024 4:01 PM