Ratan Tata invests in Tracxn

Second investment in 2016; last year he had invested in 14 firms

Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, has invested an undisclosed sum in Bengaluru-based start-up intelligence platform Tracxn. This is his second investment in 2016.

Started in 2013 by Neha Singh and Abhishek Goyal, investors in Accel Partners, Tracxn helps funds, private equity firms and companies keep track of the start-up market. Accel Partners is an investor in the firm.

Earlier this week, Tata had invested in DogSpot.in, an online portal that sells grooming products for dogs. In 2015, Ratan Tata emerged one of the top angel investors taking stake in 14 companies including Snapdeal, Ola, Paytm and UrbanClap.

“At Tracxn, we are building the largest intelligence platform to help investors and companies stay on top of all start-up activity. We are very proud that Mr Tata has seen value in our product offering. We are eager to learn from Mr Tata’s invaluable experience, as we take Tracxn to the next level,” said Neha Singh, chief executive and founder of Tracxn.

The funding from Ratan Tata marks another milestone in Tracxn’s two-year journey. The company had earlier raised $3.5-million from SAIF Partners in April 2015. Tracxn, which claims to be building the largest team of analysts, exclusively tracking start-ups, has increased its team from 25 to 125 in less than 12 months. Tracxn’s client base has also seen a 400 per cent increase over the past year, and includes marquee names such as Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, SoftBank, Google Capital, VMWare, GE and LG, it said.