StartupCentral

Komli Media, a Mumbai-based advertising network startup, has picked up $6 million in Series B funding from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. The fresh funds will be used to grow the company’s presence in the Asia Pacific region.

The funding follows Komli’s acquisition of PostClick in Australia last month, as part of its Asia Pacific expansion strategy. The company claims 1,500 sites on its network including Facebook, Expedia and Bloomberg, and 30 million unique users.

The company raised $7 million in its Series A round in 2008. It currently employs 90 people in India and overseas and was founded in 2006 by Amar Goel, CEO, who earlier led sales and services at Microsoft.

(Source: Press Release)

Disclosed venture capital investments in 2009, by my count, stood at just under $150 million. The total number of deals announced was 59, out of which 28 did not disclose the investment amount.

This is as per numbers collated from deals reported by various media and announced in press releases. Not all these deals are verified and in many cases the announced/ committed money will flow into the respective companies in tranches over an extended period. The actual total investment, therefore, would be much lower.

There are other numbers floating around as well. Venture Intelligence puts investments till November at $332 million across 68 deals, against $839 million and 155 deals for the full year 2008.

Here are our key numbers from 2009: Read the full story

[media-credit name="Snigdha Sengupta" align="alignnone" width="150"][/media-credit]Kanwaljit Singh started Bangalore and New Delhi based venture capital firm Helion Venture Partners with Ashish Gupta and Sanjeev Aggarwal in April 2006. The firm has raised $350 million and invested in 21 companies till date. In 2008, Helion added consumr services businesses to its investment focus alongside technology-powered businesses. Singh, who earlier led Carlyle Group’s venture investments in India and held key operational roles at Intel Corporation and Hindustan Unilever for over two decades, talks about why consumer services are such a great venture opportunity in India.

Why Indian Venture Capitalists Are Investing in Consumer Businesses

By Kanwaljit Singh

The consumer services market, which we at Helion see as a key area of focus, is a very interesting opportunity that could potentially translate into unique returns for venture capital in India. There are a few reasons that make this market compelling for investors. Read the full story