Astarc Ventures to invest in ten start-ups this year

The family fund, with an initial corpus of $2 mn, was floated in December 2014 by Astarc Group

After investing Rs 6 crore in online home decor firm Renderlogy, early-stage seed fund Astarc Ventures is looking at investing in at least 10 products, services and technology start-ups by March, executive director Salil Musale said.

The family fund, with an initial corpus of $2 million (around Rs 13 crore), was floated in December 2014 by Astarc Group, a Mumbai-based, $400-million worth conglomerate, which has diversified interests in private equity, mining, automobile, retail, agro, real estate, power, ports and IT-enabled services in India, East Africa, the US and Indonesia.

"Though we are sector-agnostic, what is of interest to us now are companies in the technology space that are disruptive and could complement our automotive and retail businesses, to make strategic investments. We are also looking at backing up startups in the areas like 3D printing, analytics and Internet of Things. Overall, we are planning to invest in at least ten startups by the end of March 2016," Musale told Business Standard.

While Resync, a part of the Astarc Group, provides integrated marketing communication solutions such as design, point-of-purchase, visual merchandising, signage, store rollouts and project management to its retail clientele such as ITC, McDonalds, Kraft foods, Johnson & Johnson, HSBC, Airtel, Nokia, Piaggio and Hero Moto Corp, its automotive business Classic Stripes Private Limited has a market share of 70 per cent in the Indian automotive OEM printing industry.

Stating that Astarc Ventures' investment sweet spot ranges between $100,000 and $1 million in each startup, with the typical holding period being four years, Musale said the company was in the process of increasing the corpus to $5 million (Rs 32.5 crore) in due course.

"Acquiring one of the companies that the fund invests in, let the entrepreneur run it and spin them out into some of our existing businesses, too, is on our agenda. Right now, we are looking at making a strategic investment and acquire controlling stake in an analytics startup and add them to our bucket of retail services," he said, while declining to comment further.