CoCreate Ventures, a new venture capital firm that aims to help struggling startups, has today raised about Rs. 15 crore as a part of its new fund from a cohort of high net-worth individuals. The fund is focused on startups in the social awareness domain that are lacking capital or pivoting to new ideas.
Suresh Narasimha, partner at CoCreate Ventures, said,
We are looking at startups in healthcare, wellness, education and social awareness that are going through a pivot, turnaround or spin off. We intend to get involved with these companies by providing financial and business assistance to help them revive.
The firm, co-founded by Suresh Narasimha and Pavan Krishnamurthy, has made its first investment in library chain JustBooks to help the eight-year-old company revamp its digital presence. It has created a new company JustBooks Solutions Pvt Ltd, and has acquired the business and brand JustBooks from Strata Technology Services through an asset sale.
Strata Technology Services was running the omni-channel book renting service with over 1 million books and a presence across 13 cities. CoCreate Ventures helped JustBooks Solutions in the acquisition.
Now, with support from CoCreate, JustBooks will revamp its digital operations, ramp up their technology piece for better customer management and loyalty programmes, bring in more human resources to manage the brand and introduce new categories in books. The company is planning to revamp its operations and go from 65 stores currently to over 100 stores across the country in the next six month.
Narasimha said CoCreate Ventures will also work with other venture capital firms in the ecosystem to help companies that require higher level of engagement and extended support. The venture fund is also in discussion with some of the traditional businesses with interesting spin-off opportunities that leverage technology.
