LinkedIn, the professional networking site which closed a $53 million round on Wednesday, claimed that it has one million members in India. If the number is right (it looks a bit far fetched as India’s best read English papers like The Economic Times is yet to reach 1 million readership), that will put LinkedIn in [...]
Jivox, a US and India based online video advertising network targeted at local businesses, has closed a $10.7 million Series A round of financing led by existing backer Opus Capital, a US based early-stage venture capital firm, and joined by Helion Venture Partners, an India-focused venture fund. The other unnamed existing backers have also participated [...]
US-based venture capital fund Acumen has made an equity investmant of Rs 4.5 crore in Kerala-based AyurVAID hospitals. AyurVAID is promoted by Kochi-based Kerala First Health Services Pvt Ltd. The company plans to set up hospitals at six new locations, including Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad, in the next one year.
By 2012, it plans to [...]
Hyderabad-based digital map solutions company, SatNav Technologies, has raised series A funding of $7 million from Sequoia Capital Capital India. SatNav, which publishes city map guide for mobiles, PDAs, PCs and laptops, had earlier received investment (or advertising support for equity) from newspaper group Bennett, Coleman & Company. SatNav was founded by Amit Prasad in [...]
Mobile payment company PayMate India Pvt. Ltd. has raised $9 million in series B round from Mayfield Fund and the existing backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Buyers and Sherpalo Ventures. The stake diluted is undisclosed. Nikhil Khattau, Managing Director of Mayfield Advisors, will join the board of PayMate.
PayMate had raised $5 million in its first [...]
Sequoia Capital India is close to making a majority stake acquisition in Pine Labs, a Noida, Uttar Pradesh-based provider of payment, loyalty and retail automation services. The Economic Times reported that Sequoia could be picking up 70 per cent stake for Rs 20 crore, valuing the company at Rs 28 crore.
Pine Labs, founded in 2004, [...]
Vinod Khosla is going beyond his own pocket to fund the investments of Khosla Ventures. peHub reports that Khosla, who primarily makes cleantech investments, is set to get his first external investor in his fund. The $244-billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System “is in advanced talks to commit up to $640 million to Khosla Ventures”, [...]
Intel Capital has invested in an Indian online education company Vriti Infocom, which claims to be creating the first education marketplace in the country. The Noida (Uttar Pradesh)-based Vriti, set up by a group of ex-IITians, has raised a total of $2.5 million. Vriti’s website (www.vriti.com) shows that they are into three verticals - education, [...]
Reliance Technology Ventures Ltd (RTVL), the corporate venture capital arm of the Reliance ADA Group, has co-invested along with other global venture funds in a US-based mobile- and web-based social networking company Pelago Inc. Some media reports that the company received an investment of $15 million in this round (it had got $7.4 million in [...]
Close on the heels of Battery Ventures announcing an India partner to be based in Mumbai (see our post), here is another Silicon Valley based fund drawing up its India dedicated fund plans. Mayfield Fund is raising up to $150 million for its first India dedicated fund, PEHub reported, quoting a regulatory filing.
Mayfiled has already [...]
Finally, Battery Ventures, a Silicon Valley based venture capital firm, has got a man on the ground in India. The venture fund, which has been investing in India since 2004, has appointed Guatam Patel as a partner focused on investments in India. Patel was earlier head of European operations for iGate, a business process outsourcing [...]
Zeus Numerix Pvt Ltd, an engineering design services company incubated at IIT Bombay, has received Rs 2 crore ($500,000) funding from a group of high-net worth individuals led by investment bank Saltrock Advisors Pvt Ltd. Zeus is founded by a group of IIT-B professors and students. The company has the backing of 10 years of [...]
Lightspeed Venture Partners, a global venture capital firm, has closed Light Speed Venture Partners VIII with $800 million of limited partner commitments. This is much above the firm’s target of $675 million. This closing brings Lightspeed’s total funds under management to over $2 billion.
The new fund will look to invest in “industry-leading companies in India, [...]
The India and US based power point (PPT) online sharing company SlideShare.com has received $3 million funding from a group of angels and venture capital fund Venrock Associates. SlideShare works on the same principle as YouTube - the difference is that the former hosts PPTs while the latter hosts videos. (We have used Slideshare on [...]
New Horizon Media Pvt Ltd (NHM), a Chennai based regional language book publisher, has received an undisclosed investment from Beacon India Private Equity Fund as part of its second round of funding. The Mumbai-based fund, part of Dubai-based Baer Capital, will pick up a minority stake in the company. This round also saw investments from [...]
