Venture Catalysts, a seed investment and innovation platform which is based out of Mumbai, has announced that it has raised $500,000 from Zaffiro Ventures. This also marks Zaffiro Ventures’ first investment in India.
The fund raised will be used by the firm to expand its presence to Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi and Raipur among others in the coming three years. By the end of this year, it plans to expand to five more cities, followed by another five in around two years.
It will also use the funds to provide support to start-ups in four aspects: incubation, co-working space, corporate partnerships and access to angel network. With this funding round, the firm’s post-money valuation now stands at Rs.40 crore.
Venture Catalysts was founded by Anil Jain, Anuj Golecha, Apoorva Sharma and Gaurav Jain. It currently has a network of over 600 angels. Till date, it has made 10 investments and raised more than $3 million for start-ups working with them.
Its portfolio includes Siftr Labs, vPhrase Analytics, LenDenClub, etc. The firm is now planning to expand its portfolio by 10-15 start-up investments in the next one year. It invests around Rs.75 lakh to Rs.1.5 crore in early stage start-ups and is now eying startups related to IoT, AI, ad-tech, virtual reality, education, e-commerce and retail.
By next year, it plans to open five co-working spaces in Mumbai alone. It currently has strategic partnerships with Cox and Kings and Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd. These partners provides access to work with startups for strategic guidance, strategic investment, lead generation, and more.
It recently expanded its operations to Surat and Gujarat. It is now trying to add 100 new angel investors in the coming few months from Surat, by giving them access to start-ups from across the country. Each angel investor invests close to Rs. 50 lakh to Rs. 1 crore annually via Venture Catalyst.
Commenting on the funding, Revathi Roy, co-founder, Zaffiro Ventures, added that,
After interacting with the Venture Catalysts founders we learnt how robust the end-to-end ecosystem is built to support and nurture new-age tech businesses. Hence instead of re-inventing the wheel by creating a new platform, creating synergies is a well-thought process.
