Ratan Tata, one of India’s most revered businessmen and now also one of India’s most revered investors, is back in the game. After a long break due to management tussles at Tata group, Ratan Tata is back to investing, as he funds SeedPlus, a seed-stage venture fund, that has raised over $18 million (S$25 million) for its debut fund. The fund has also seen itself, being backed by Cisco Investments and Eight Roads Ventures.
The Singapore-based startup investor was launched by Jungle Ventures and counts Accel Partners, Rata Tata’s RNT Associates and SGInnovate among its backers. Rajiv Menon, managing director of Corporate Development at Cisco and head of Cisco Investments, Asia Pacific & Japan, said,
The goals of SeedPlus align with Cisco Investments’ mission of supporting startups with disruptive technology and unique business models. Asia has tremendous potential, and our investment in SeedPlus will give us additional access to the vibrant growth of the region.
Also, last month, International Financial Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, had invested $2 million in the fund to support early stage technology startups in Asia.
SeedPlus is supported by Google and PwC Singapore and focuses on investing in companies that aim large addressable markets in Asia or globally. With its investments, it wants to help in building Asia’s most disruptive start-ups across software-as-a-service (SaaS), financial technology, artificial intelligence, cyber security and other emerging technology areas. It generally invests up to S$1 million in each startup in Asia.
Raj Dugar, Managing Partner, Asia at Eight Roads, commented on the final close of the first fund, saying,
With this investment, we look forward to working closely with the SeedPlus team and backing exciting ventures with the potential to scale across Southeast Asia and the broader Asia market.
Its portfolio includes firms like Indian B2B e-commerce platform Moglix, Mimetic.ai, a Singaporean technology startup responsible for creating Evie, an artificial intelligence (AI) scheduling assistant, and Homage, a Singapore-based startup that connects in-home caregivers with elderly people seeking assistance.
SeedPlus is run by three operating partners – Michael Smith Jr, Gabriel Lundberg and Tiang Lim Foo, who led Evernote’s market development in Asia Pacific. The firm also announced the joining of Chirayu Wadke, who had previously led strategic business development for a number of product areas at Google in Mountain View, as a Partner leading IoT investments.
