Patna-headquartered microfinance institution Saija Finance has raised $4.5 million in Series B funding from private equity investor Pragati India Fund and microfinance focused non-profit Accion. Saija was founded in early 2008 and serves borrowers in Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and other parts of Northern India. As on April 30, 2012, the company had disbursed loans worth Rs 7.30 crore. (Source: Press Release).
Accelerator to angel to VC flow still struggling to find equilibrium in India
I had fun moderating the panel on early stage financing at India Internet Day. VCCircle has an interesting article. The key issues are as under: 1. Too few deals are progressing from accelerators to angel, and from angel to Series A. Only five per cent of deals going from accelerators to Series A might not [...]
The early ecommerce marketplace pioneers: eBay class of 2000-2005
TechCrunch recently published an article I wrote about how the eBay class of 2000-2005 helped shape ecommerce in Silicon Valley and continues to innovate and move the sector forward. By understanding what shaped this class’ experience and examining where these alums are today, we identified the most important industry trends and start to see a [...]
The founder’s guide to surviving the Series A crunch
The Indian entrepreneurship and venture capital ecosystem is fast maturing. Today we have more early stage funds than ever. This fund availability will only improve, aside from the temporary blips caused due to macroeconomic ups and downs. We are in one such ‘crunch’ today, where even though seed and angel funds are writing cheques with [...]
