STARTUPCENTRAL Venture Capital

Michael Moritz steps back from Sequoia due to rare illness

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Sequoia Capital’s Michael Moritz, among Silicon Valley’s legendary venture capitalists, is scaling back his day-to-day management of the Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm, according to various media reports. In a letter informing Sequoia’s limited partners of the development on Monday morning, Moritz said that he has been “diagnosed with a rare medical condition which can be managed but is incurable.”…

Hippocampus Learning raises $1.3 million from Lok Capital, Acumen

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Hippocampus Learning Centres (HLC), a Bangalore-based education services provider that targets rural markets, has raised Rs 7 crore ($1.29 million) from Lok Capital and Acumen Fund as part of a Series A round of funding for an undisclosed equity stake. HLC will use the funds raised to expand its outreach to 7,000 students and 100 villages over the next two…

[Deals Today] Basix Samrudhi, Limberlink, CBazaar

Posted on May 11, 2012 by StartupCentral | 0 Comments

Basix Krishi Samrudhi: Vijay Mahajan-backed Basix Krishi Samrudhi, a company that provides agri-services such as soil testing, seed treatment and pest management, has raised $2 million from Acumen Fund. The funds raised will be used to scale BASIX Krishi’s activities to 67 branches serving nearly 350,000 farmer customers over the next two years. (Source: Venture Intelligence). Limberlink Technologies: Online education services…

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Has Mr Mukherjee set the stage for a Angel Capital Association in India?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Startups may no longer have to worry about paying income tax on capital raised from angel investors. On Monday, amending an earlier proposal from March’s Union Budget, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee proposed to exempt capital raised by startups as angel investment from the purview of income tax. This, however, will be subject to a pre-condition. Only capital raised from notified…

China Q1 VC investments hit a five-year low at $745 million

Posted on May 7, 2012 by StartupCentral | 0 Comments

Continuing with the global trend of declining venture capital investment activity during the first quarter of 2012, investments in China, the toast of the global venture capital community for most of the past decade, slipped to their lowest levels in five years, said media reports quoting numbers published by Dow Jones VentureSource. Investments during the quarter stood at $745 million across…

April Deal Roundup: VC investors take a break from ecommerce

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Venture capitalists took a breather from ecommerce deals during the month of April, diverting capital instead to segments such as mobile, renewable energy and software solutions. A total of 21 early stage deals worth over $80 million were reported during the month, according to StartupCentral’s estimates based on information available in the public domain. Compared to five ecommerce deals in…

Ayaan Adam on IFC’s quest for the formula for VC investing in India

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 0 Comments

Last month, International Finance Corporation (IFC), a unit of the World Bank, announced a slew of investments in small and medium enterprises-focused private equity funds in India. The investments are part of IFC’s ongoing limited partner investment programme that backs SME-focused investors. So far, this year, the developmental finance institution has announced investments worth $70 million in four funds and…

[Deals Today] Karadi Path, Edabba, Snowman Logistics

Posted on April 10, 2012 by StartupCentral | 2 Comments

Snowman Logistics: Bangalore-based Snowman Logistics has raised $6.5 million from IFC, a unit of the World Bank, as a loan to help the food supply chain company to expand its cold storage facilities. The company had earlier raised a $5 million investment from IFC in 2009. (Source: Press Release). Edabba: Brick-and-click ecommerce startup Edabba has raised $1 million as part…

SEBI approves AIF regulations; social VCs, SME funds may get concessions

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Snigdha Sengupta | 1 Comments

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) approved the rules and guidelines for regulating venture capital, private equity and hedge fund investors at a board meeting held in Mumbai last evening. The SEBI board has approved the proposal to frame the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012, said a press release issued by the capital markets regulator. The regulations will…

Deals Today: Games2Win, Ujjivan, IIMJobs, App Surfer

Posted on March 27, 2012 by StartupCentral | 0 Comments

Games2Win: The Patni family-backed Nirvana Venture Advisors has picked up a 10 per cent stake in Games2Win for an undisclosed amount. The deal spells a partial exit for existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and ICICI Venture. (Source: StartupCentral). SaffromContract: Employment portal StaffonContract.com, owned by Joule Consulting, has raised angel funding of Rs 50 lakh from Indiagames founder Vishal Gondal. The…