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Tag: venture capital

  • How are Fireside Ventures Changing the Indian Startup Ecosystem?

    The world of the startup ecosystem is incomplete without the ventures that act as the support system for the entrepreneurs. Venture Capital firms are the only ones who are helping the Indian startups to grow. Now, as more and more entrepreneurs come up with their ideas that do tend to revolutionize a particular sector, it is high time that these companies acquire the credits and recognition they deserve.

    Amongst the venture capitals, one of the most impactful Venture Capital is Fireside Ventures. This Venture Capital has been taking giant strides in the world of the startup ecosystem and hopefully, will lead it to the path of betterment! Let’s have a sneak-peek into the story of Fireside Ventures and see How Fireside Ventures Changing the Indian Startup Ecosystem?

    Quick Facts – Fireside Ventures

    Company Name Fireside Ventures
    Headquarter Bengaluru, India
    Sector Finance
    Founders Vinay Singh, Kannan Sitaram
    Founded 2017
    Net Worth INR 10,700 million

    The Story of Fireside Ventures

    Almost about two years ago, Fireside Ventures had closed its first fund with an initial corpus of INR 340 crore and started investing exclusively in young Indian consumer brand startups. Well, for the founder Kanwal Singh, this is a way to back those ventures that will take the Indian narrative to the world. Now, as Indian startups have been performing exceedingly well in the big stage, somehow, the credit goes to these Venture Capital firms who has been working tirelessly to ensure that the startups does not face the issues that the companies had to face in the late twentieth century.

    Fireside Ventures Changing the Indian Startup Ecosystem
    Fireside Ventures

    As per the founder, the team of Fireside Ventures is big believers in the emerging consumer brands and what’s happening to that story not just in India, but also in the global stage. Mr. Singh had quit Helion Venture Partners in 2014, this was a tech-focused venture capital firm that he had co-founded. The present company that he has been working in, Fireside Ventures started as his family office in 2015 and became a Venture Capital firm in 2017. Now, almost after 2 to 3 years, he is happy to witness a general emergence of brands that are born in India and are made for the world.

    As per Mr. Singh, these brands, whose product have found their way into the houses of commoners in the United States and the United Kingdom, have taking the Indian story to the global markets and the result are very exciting for companies like Fireside Ventures!

    few things a VC notices in a pitch
    > Venture Capital (VC) is a type of private equity and a form of financing that isprovided by companies and business entities to comparatively small, new andemerging firms that are seen as a potential of having a high growth in future –be it in numbers of employees, annual turnover, or both. So…
    StartupTalkyAshwini

    Mission of Fireside Ventures

    The main agenda of Fireside Ventures is to initially invest in around 25 ventures that could become an iconic brand in 10-15 years. AS per, Kannan Sitaram, the venture partner at the firm, some 1,400 prospects had come in contact with the team and out of which, 350 were assessed, and the team of Fireside Ventures detailed diligence on 140 and made 18 investments. As per Mr. Kannan, these ventures not only represent emerging trends but, also the intersection of the trends.

    Fireside Ventures Changing the Indian Startup Ecosystem
    Missions of Fireside Ventures

    Funding of Fireside Ventures

    The company usually makes investments of $4 to $5 million across pre-Series A and Series A stages. In 2019, had raised around $60 million for its second fund, and had a target corpus of $100 million in total. The fund is officially named as Fireside Fund II and is anchored by Indian and Global investors and institutions. In August 2019, the Fireside Venture secured an undisclosed sum of money from the French personal care company L’Oreal in September 2019.

    Funding Raised by Fireside Ventures

    Announced Date Fund Name Money Raised
    Mar 20, 2018 Fireside Ventures Maiden Fund I Rs. 3400million
    Nov 19, 2019 Fireside Ventures Maiden Fund II Rs. 7300million

    As per Mr. Singh, the second round is comprised of the ideology and aims to double down on investments into young millennial brands and help them scale the brand reach across its target segment. In 2019, he had cited that the company is starting to see credible opportunities for Indian brands to go global and the team had witnessed a lot of interest from domestic and global investors including family offices, strategies, larger institutions, etc.

    He also pointed out that the Fireside portfolio will look to expand into newer brands across segments like super-foods, personalized beauty, fashion, and personal care. The company had a corpus of INR 340 crore and was backed by fast-moving consumer goods brands like Unilever Ventures, Emami Ltd, ITC, etc.

    Many prominent investors like Premji Invest, Westbridge Capital, Mariwala Family Office, Sanjiv Goenka Family Office, and Sunil Munjal’s Hero Enterprise Investment Office had invested in the first fund of the company.

    Venture Capital Ideas For Business Startups
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    StartupTalkyAshwini

    An insight into the Fireside Ventures

    The company was founded by a team lead by consumer industry veteran Mr. Singh and the team comprised of experienced campaigners like Vinay Singh and V.S. Kannan in 2017. Till now, in a short period, it has already made investments across segments like personal care, processed foods, lifestyle, and home products.

    Fireside Ventures Changing the Indian Startup Ecosystem
    Founders of Fireside Ventures

    The companies that have benefited by Fireside Ventures are numerous, the prominent ones being Yoga Bar, Samosa Singh, Bombay Shaving Co., Mama Earth, and Vahdam Teas. Well, one of Fireside’s early investment Kwik 24, was acquired by BigBasket in 2018, this shows the impact of the Venture Capital firms in raising a startup.

    For its first fund, the company has claimed to have received investment interest from around 2,000 companies. Apart from that, around 90% of the investible corpus of fund 1 have already been deployed and the remaining 10% is reserved for the follow-ons. Amidst the closing of the second fund, Fireside also announced its newest portfolio brand Gynoveda, this is Ayurvedic personal care that is premised on personal health. This company also claims to have created the world’s first-period bot, which helps diagnose menstrual issues and then prescribe a personalized regime of Ayurvedic supplements to help alleviate menstrual cycles.

    List of Angel Investors in Hyderabad [With Contact Details]
    Hyderabad, being the major city of the technology industry and termed as the “City of Pearls”, embraces many budding as well as successful entrepreneurs. Ifyou are an aspiring entrepreneur who is looking for investors in Hyderabad forstartups, here we have attempted to list down Top Angel Investo…
    StartupTalkyJeenal Jain

    Fireside Ventures: Changing Startup Ecosystem?

    Fireside has been helping the Indian startups to make a name for themselves in a populated circuit. By helping them in every step, the team has been a prolific helper for the startups that were vulnerable to the closure of their ideas. Now, with the help of Fireside Ventures, they can freely implement their ideas and help the Indian startup ecosystem to be the change-maker!

  • An Insight into one of the Most Vital Venture Capitals: Chiratae

    Nothing is more predictable like the startup ecosystem. The one residing at the top of the chart may fall into the loopholes and become less popular on any given day. The same is the story about the Indian startups who are struggling at the present moment. These ventures can become the next big thing in the ecosystem if they execute their plans very well. Now, as we discuss the stories of many venture capitals, there is one of the most vital venture capitals: Chiratae, that has helped many startups to grow and help out multiple companies to stand on their own feet.

    Quick Facts – Chiratae

    Company Name Chiratae
    Headquarter Bengaluru, India
    Sector Finance
    Founder Sudhir Sethi
    Founded 2006
    Net Worth $600 million

    Insights into Chiratae

    The entrepreneurs at Chiratae embrace the unpredictable and exploratory terrains of the startup ecosystem. The name has been derived from the animal Cheetah as most of the team members are wildlife enthusiasts. The company has helped over 80 ventures and 2 IPOs. About $700 million advisories have been done by Chiratae and the team has over 3 offices across the country.

    The company was founded by Sudhir Sethi. Post-1998, Sudhir and the team have advised on investments into 100+ companies across Deep Tech, Digital Consumer, Enterprise  Software, Fintech, and Healthcare sectors. The key investment under Sudhir is Flipkart, FirstCry, Lenskart, Policy Bazaar, Curefit, Manthan, Newgen, Nestaway, and many more to name.

    Success story of Chiratae
    Sudhir Sethi

    The company is now one of the leading tech venture capital in the country with Mr. Ratan Tata, Mr. Kris Gopalkrishnan, Mr. Burno Raschle, and Mr. Manish Choksi on its global advisory board. In 2001, Mr. Sethi was recognized by Red Herring as one of the leading venture capitalists in the country. Apart from that, he has been named among the Top Ten IT Professionals by Dataquest and Bloomberg UTV as the visionary venture capitalist. He also featured in Subroto Bagchi’s book Zen Garden- Conversations with Pathmakers in 2014.

    Adding on to that, the founder of Chiratae ventures has served on EMPEA Venture Capital Council. He has served on the executive committee of India Venture Capital Association, Investment Committee of UTI Ventures, on the Board of Advisors at N.S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurship, IIM Bangalore. Sudhir has completed his BTech in engineering and holds an MBA degree from FMS Delhi, one of the most prestigious institutions in the country.

    Chiratae Efforts in Helping DeepTech Startups

    Being one of the leaders, risk-taker, and supporters of the startup ecosystem, Chiratae Ventures has been digging down deep and finding the uncharted terrains of the startup ecosystem since 2006. The company was formerly known as IDG Ventures. This VC has invested in over 80+ companies across consumer media and tech, cloud/software, health tech, and fintech sectors, and out of this, 25 % have made it to the global stage.

    The fundraising philosophy of the founder includes the entrepreneur being a stellar one, with an ability to become a huge brand and to get on to the global stage. Hence, the company has been helping out the startups successfully and continues to do so. As time passes, the company is growing bigger and better and making it to the headlines.

    Success story of Chiratae
    Chiratae Deeptech

    As the country moves from services to products to innovation to the DeepTech economy, Chiratae Ventures is on a mission to explore the trends in the ecosystem and identify when opportunities could be created. Now, the company is looking to identify and support entrepreneurs who are motivated to bring a positive impact by leveraging Deep technology.

    Since few years, the firm has nurtured and helped grow several DeepTech startups, some of them include Axio Biosolutions- MedTech to revolutionize bleeding and wound healing, SigTuple-intelligent screening solutions to aid diagnosis through AI-powered analysis of visual medical data, PlayShifu which is an AR-based interactive learning toy for kids, Zumutor Biologics- a leading immune-oncology company in the space of targeted NK cell therapeutics and Emotix- makers of Miko, an educational company bot are some of the major support provided by the company.

    Chiratae on the Path to Enable DeepTech Entrepreneurs

    Being one of the major supporters of the DeepTech movement, the company had launched a DeepTech innovators program, which was a two-day immersive event to provide startups in DeepTech space access to an ecosystem of experts and successful entrepreneurs. Talking about the event, Sudhir had cited that as investors, the team needs to reinvent to steer the country into its next growth phase.

    According to him, the country is witnessing a boom in innovation in the country and the team wants to be the catalyst for this transformation by supporting the entrepreneurs. Through this program, they have tried to bridge the gap that early startups are facing in terms of accessibility to talent, mentorship, and capital. During this event, the companies were given a chance to partner with key influencers in the ecosystem, including the DeepTech experts and industry evangelist who can provide them with expert advice and opportunities to scale their business.


    Now, as the company aims to bridge in the gap between the struggling startups and resources, it is has been taking giant strides in the ecosystem.  In this event, the team brings in a program that fosters a network-led and collaborative approach by providing selected entrepreneurs with many benefits. Some of those benefits included an increased investment process and AMA with experts who have scaled businesses across multiple sectors.

    This event also included sessions on entrepreneurship must-knows and how to create great products that can help society. Apart from this, the selected entrepreneurs got a chance to have access to seed-stage capital. Adding on to this, leading corporate brands are sharing their deep-tech knowledge with Chiratae and its partners.

    Chiratae Funding

    Announced Date Fund Name Money Raised
    Oct 9, 2019 Chiratae Ventures International Fund IV $184M
    Sep 12, 2019 India-focused fund IV $150M
    Sep 4, 2019 Chiratae’s Fund IV $20M
    May 12, 2016 IDG Ventures India Fund III $208M
    Feb 1, 2013 IDG Ventures India Fund II $175M
    Feb 1, 2007 IDG Ventures India I LLC $150M

    Chiratae as an Inspiration

    Well, if we look into how much Chiratae has contributed to the development of the startup ecosystem, we can infer that it is an indispensable part of the startup circuit. Now, a company alone cannot fuel the growth of the circuit on its own, hence, it is very much important for other venture capitals to come up and support the entrepreneurs!

  • What are a few things a VC notices in a pitch

    Venture Capital (VC) is a type of private equity and a form of financing that is provided by companies and business entities to comparatively small, new and emerging firms that are seen as a potential of having a high growth in future  – be it in numbers of employees, annual turnover, or both.

    So a venture capital can also be defined simply as a private (or institutional) investment made into the early stage of start-up companies. We have also covered startups from Kolkata, Lucknow and other major cities of India.

    Any venture involves some amount of risk and uncertainties with respect to the expectations of gains and profits and is therefore sometimes referred to as Risk Capital or Potential Risk Capital. Venture Capital is the money that is invested in businesses that are small but have huge potential and the people who invest this money are called Venture Capitalists.

    The venture capital investment is made when a venture capitalist buys shares of such company or firm and becomes a financial partner in the business and has some stakes in it. The venture capital investment involves high risk, long term horizon, an equity participation and capital gains. It has a lack of liquidity. Venture Capital investments are made in creative and innovative projects, and the Venture Capitalists are a part of the management of the company.

    Also Read :

    Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup phase and the public company phase.
    – Fred Wilson, Venture Capitalist

    So, if you are new upcoming business person with a start-up idea that has potential and growth prospects, Venture Capital funding is a way of kick starting your business. There is a process that needs to be followed typically for the funding process and it has four phases.

    a)       Idea Generation – this is the initial step in approaching a Venture Capital and you have to submit a business plan which will include the relevant details and information about your business proposal. A detailed analysis will be done by a VC to decide whether to take up the project or not.

    b)       Introductory Meeting – once your business proposal is selected by the VC from previous stage, there will be a one-to-one meeting that is called for discussing the project further in details. After the meeting, the VC will decide whether to move forward with your project or reject it. It is very important for the presentation to be as interesting and attention grabbing as possible.

    c)       Due Diligence – depending upon the nature of the business, the due diligence phase will vary. This stage involves solving of queries related to customer references, product and other business strategies that needs evaluations, management interviews, and other such exchanges of information during the given time period.

    d)       Term Sheets and Funding – if the business proposal passes the due diligence then the VC offers a term sheet (which is a non-binding document explaining the terms and conditions of the investment contract). The term sheet is usually negotiable and the consent of all the parties is must. They should all agree. And after the completion of legal documents and legal due diligence the funds are made available.

    Considering that there is a high risk involved in the venture capital investments but also a high return expected from it, one should do a thorough study of the project being considered, weighing the risk return ratio that are expected. One needs to do the homework both on the venture capital being targeted and the business requirements. As during the time of pitching, the Venture Capitalists have to be impressed by your presentation and give you the required financing thereafter. It is especially important for budding entrepreneur to preform excellently as the collaboration will yield loads for him.

    So let us discuss what are a few things a VC notices in a pitch for your presentation about the business project, and while we are doing that we will also see how you can get the VC impressed and be in your favor.

    a. Basic adequacy and professionalism that is reflected in your conduct

    You represent your business as its CEO and the CEO is supposed to stand out, you should be able to make an impression on the VC that he/she remembers you. So the formal attire, the eloquence and the way you behave is important. It is a simple characteristic but it is indeed of utmost importance.

    b. Confidently deliver your presentation

    You should come to the investors meetings rehearsed and prepared. The VC immediately notices that you have come prepared or not. Don’t blow your shot by heckling or using a sentence that gives the VC an impression that you didn’t come prepared or are unserious about it. The VC will not move forward with you unless you are prepared well.

    c. Be punctual

    You have to arrive on time for the meeting, so try to come at least 15 minutes early. Consider well in advance about the traffic, other delays that might occur, and then proceed with a well thought provision of time. Give a through overview to your slides and arrange them. Do all this before making your way to the conference room. That way you are prepped and ready to go.

    d. Carry Hard Copies

    The business firm might be willing to invest lakhs in your project, but all that depends upon the pitching at the end. And your pitching depends on the slides and decks of your presentation. Life is full of uncertainties, but you can be prepared for the ones you can foresee. If your electronic mediums give up, or are not connecting, this might turn out to be very disastrous. But if you carry hard copies printed out, you can carry on with the presentation. It is very helpful in case of emergencies and shows the VC that are responsible and care about the presentation. A positive impact is made and it shows your credibility.

    e. Make first impression within seven seconds

    While being in the conference room, conduct yourself as professionally as you can. Stand up (to show respect) and extend your hand when the investor enters the room. Smile and look the investors confidently, and introduce yourself. These simple steps work long ways.

    f. Rule of Four

    You should use rule of four while presenting, which means that you should stand up if you are presenting to more than four people. It shows the amount of due respect to the audience you are catering to. Not doing so will work against you tremendously.

    g. Prepare follow-up questions

    It is important to win the trust and faith of the investors, and by answering the questions asked during the presentation it communicated your knowledge to huge extents. So be prepared to answer questions you see that could be asked.

    Also Read : How does Crowdfunding Work to Raise Money for Startup

    So there you have it, a few factors that you need to be concerned about as the VC will notice these during the pitch.