Venture Capitalists

Early-stage VC firm Blume Ventures has announced an initial close of $175 million for its fifth fund, targeting $250-275 million by early 2026, with continued LP support

With an estimated corpus of $25 million, the VC firm plans to invest in 45-50 startups over the next three years in sectors like consumer-tech, artificial intelligence, and deeptech

While there is a well-developing local market in India, US customers are more eager to try new products and are willing to pay for them, says Krishna Mehra, AI partner at Elevation Capital

Among the recent exits are cloud telephony provider Exotel, where Artha clocked a 114x return, and investment platform Lightyear, which yielded 20x returns

Global venture capital (VC) investment declined to $101.05 billion across 7,356 deals in the second quarter of 2025, compared to Q1's $128.4 billion: KPMG's latest Venture Pulse report

Michael Moritz co-founded The San Francisco Standard, a local news organization. It is acquiring Charter, a start-up focused on the future of work

B2B e-commerce firm Jumbotail has raised USD 120 million (about Rs 1,027 crore) in a funding round led by the investment arm of Standard Chartered, SC Ventures, the company said on Monday. With this fresh funding, the company has raised USD 263 million so far. "Jumbotail, India'sB2B marketplace and New Retail platform for food and grocery, has raised USD 120 million in a funding round led by SC Ventures, the innovation and investment arm of Standard Chartered Plc," the company said in a statement. The company will invest the capital to build AI-native solutions and capabilities to cement its leadership, the statement said. Jumbotail also announced the completion of its acquisition of Solv India, which is a B2B commerce and financial services platform incubated by SC Ventures. The deal was approved by the Competition Commission of India (CCI). "Together with Solv, we now help thousands of brands and MSME sellers reach over 5,00,000 small retailers across more than 400 cities and to

Backed by SUD Life, Haldiram's and others, Physis Capital aims to support 15+ high-impact startups with investments between $1-1.5 mn and top-ups up to $4 mn

Markets regulator Sebi on Friday extended the additional liquidation timeline by one year till July 2026 for venture capital funds (VCFs) transitioning to alternative investment funds rules. Sebi, in August 2024, issued modalities and conditions for VCFs to migrate to the Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) rules. This also allowed VCFs, with at least one scheme not yet wound up after the end of their liquidation period, an additional liquidation period until July 19, 2025, if they migrate to AIF Regulations. Based on industry feedback and to facilitate migration, Sebi has now extended this additional liquidation period to July 19, 2026, according to a circular issued on Friday. A 'Migrated VCF' is a VCF that transitions to become a sub-category of VCF under Category I - Alternative Investment Fund as per the AIF norms. The market watchdog reiterated that VCFs' transition to AIF regulations are given an additional liquidation period till July 19, 2025. On application requirements,

IVCA has urged all legacy VCFs, especially those who are holding residual assets, to immediately evaluate their eligibility and apply to SEBI for migration before the due date

360 ONE Asset's Rs 500 crore VC fund will invest in seed and Series A startups across sectors including AI, fintech, spacetech, defence, and precision manufacturing

Model portfolios platform Smallcase on Friday said it has raised USD 50 million in a new funding round led by Elev8 Venture Partners. The funding round is a mix of primary issuance of shares by the company and also secondary, where existing investors have sold shares, as per a statement. Other investors who participated in the round include State Street Global Advisors, Niveshaay AIF, Faeringcapital and Arkam Ventures, it said. Newly raised money will be deployed for expanding investment product offerings across asset classes and strengthen relationships with retail investors and ecosystem partners, it said. The company launched in 2016 helps individuals take a diversified approach towards building long-term portfolios, and has witnessed transactions of over Rs 1.2 lakh crore. "The opportunity to help millions of Indians design better financial futures is one of huge responsibilities and we will continue to deliver on it," its co-founder and chief executive Vasanth Kamath ...

This comes after closing its first VC equity fund at $50 million and an ongoing second close for its $75 million venture debt fund

'For every $1 we invested, our portfolio companies raised over $50 in follow-on capital,' says top executive

Manoj Kumar, the founder of venture development platform Social Alpha, says that deep science is all about impact first, rather than return first, making it harder to find typical venture funding

India's Venture Capital (VC) ecosystem exhibited robust growth in 2024, with funding surging 43 per cent year-on-year to USD 13.7 billion, according to a report. This recovery was fuelled by a 45 per cent rise in deal activity, with 1,270 transactions recorded, reinforcing India's position as the second largest market for venture capital and growth funding in the Asia-Pacific region, the report by Bain & Company and IVCA said. "Small- and medium-ticket deals (< USD 50 million), which made up around 95 per cent of the deals, increased by 1.4x, whereas USD 50 million+ deals nearly doubled, rebounding to pre-pandemic levels as high-quality assets attracted deployments. Megadeals (USD 100 million+) also rebounded with 1.6x increase in volumes as investors backed high-quality companies that successfully weathered the two-year funding winter," it said. The report noted that the consumer technology, software and SaaS (including generative AI), and fintech sectors attracted over 60 per

These two segments, however, focused on deals under $10 million, which accounted for 60-70 per cent of total deals in 2024

Singulr is helping enterprises rapidly adopt and operationalise powerful new AI technologies while managing costs and minimising risk.

Capital markets regulator Sebi on Tuesday cancelled the registration of 19 defunct FVCI (Foreign Venture Capital Investors) after they failed to meet the eligibility criteria. The 19 entities include Axis Capital Mauritius, Axis India Infrastructure Holdings, Blackstone Capital Partners (Singapore) VI FVCI Pte Ltd, P6 Asia Holding Investments (Cyprus) Ltd, Pequot India Mauritius IV, Ltd and Omega FVCI Investments Pte Ltd. In its order, Sebi noted that these defunct FVCI companies are no longer in existence as incorporated entities in their respective jurisdictions and thereby no longer satisfy the condition of being an entity incorporated outside India as stipulated in the FVCI Regulations. The regulator observed from the website of the Business Registration Department of Mauritius, Cyprus and Singapore, that the status of 19 FVCIs in their parent jurisdictions was defunct. Additionally, the entities had not informed Sebi about the change in their regulatory status -- the entitie

However, the firm is not looking to raise any more for at least 12 months, having just closed Rs 816 cr in fundraising, said Managing Partner Laxmikanth V