Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup phase and the public company phase ~Fred Wilson

At the early stage of a company, it needs a continuous flow of capital to keep up their day-to-day activities in business. At that budding stage, they don’t have any recognition in the market and maximum people are unaware of their existence. In such a scenario, getting funding or loans is as hard as cracking a robust gigantic stone. At this stage, Venture Capitalists come to rescue these young budding entrepreneurs.

Venture capitalist farms are discreet private equity that provides funding or capital for the startups. These venture capitalists examine and analyze the company’s business plan in detail and if they feel that the company has high growth potential, they invest capital in them against some part of their equity. These capitalists nurture and guide the new farms and work as the backbone of the company and look for multiple ways to absorb the return on their investment.

Why Venture Capitalists are important to startups?
Raising venture capital is the easiest thing a startup founder is ever going to do ~Marc Andreessen
The above quote has perfectly sufficed the significance of a venture capitalist for a growing startup. In the life of entrepreneur, venture capitalist plays pivotal roles like venture capitalists are old players of the business world and they possess lot of experience & expertise in various industries. They share their thoughts and ideas which enriches the young entrepreneurs to get success in future. They have a strong network of eminent business entities, once a startup gets connected to a venture capitalist farm, they can use this contact for further connections regarding their business. Startup companies related to engineering and biotechnology needs a lot of startup capital to kickstart their business. Here venture capitalist farms assist to continue their day-to-day work. Venture capital strengthens the working potential of a startup farm by boosting their confidence level. Venture capitalists help to gain the bank’s trust, and they help the startups to raise capital through loans whenever they need it in future. Marketing indeed plays a very significant role in any business, but by collaborating with famous venture capitalist farms the startups need not invest more on marketing. Gradually they get highlighted in the market very easily.

Let’s take a look at the famous ‘Venture Capitalists of India’ who are doing wonders for the budding startups in the country.

1. Sequoia Capital: Sequoia Capital which was renamed as Peak XV Partners is one of the venture capital farms which is investing across India, South East Asia and beyond which collaborate with early stage till late stage when they think of introducing IPO. It was founded by Don Valentine in 1972 and its Indian counterpart came into being in 2006. They changed their name and named after the former name of Mt. Everest to the relentless pursuit of greatness by their founders, demolishing the challenges along the path of success. They have been in this industry for 17 years and have grown to manage over $9bn in capital across 13 funds and invested in over 400 companies. Among them nearly 40 companies succeeded to raise revenue of $100mn. They have five corporate offices in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Singapore and Dubai and span 14 nationalities. They have invested in various sectors like cleantech, consumer internet, crypto, financial services, healthcare, mobile, and robotics sectors. Few of their notable investments are Faaso’s, FreeCharge, Grofers, Healthkart, Practo, Blinkit, Purplle, Meesho, Apple, Cisco, Google, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Zoom, PayPal, Reddit, Instagram, Tumblr, BYJU’s, CleverTap, Citrus Payment, Druva and many more. Their latest fundraise announced in 2021 is $195mn. Their mission is to transform the country into an innovative startup driven economy and uplift the lower income groups towards a cherished future.

2. Matrix Partners India: It is an early-stage funding agency which started in Boston in 1977 and presently, they are actively investing in India, China and the US. Indian counterpart of this farm was established in 2006 by Avnish Bajaj and Rishi Navani and already invested in 173 startups. They have 40+ years of experience and 65+ IPOs. They love to invest for a young innovative brain for whom quality, passion and commitment of the core team is very important and they have that spark in them to flourish. They usually invest on their own but also, they co-invest collaborating with big capitalist farms. They mainly like to invest in between seed and series B Funding but also invest in late-stage venture. They have catered numerous sectors of the industry like consumer technology, enterprise, fintech, healthcare, Edtech and so on. Few of their notable and successful investments are, FIITJEE, Country Delight, itilite, DSLR Technologies, RocketLane, Chumbak, DailyHunt, Dukaan, and many more. Matrix Partners India has raised a total of $721mn till date. They are working towards making a predominant change in the potential of the startups in future.

3. Kalaari Capital: It is a technology-based venture capital farm, located in Bangalore and started in 2012 by Vani Kola. They mainly invest in the startups that are in Seed and series A stage to empower the young visionary power for accelerating the economic system of India with innovative ideas to flourish more. According to them three golden words for running a successful business are trust, transparency and truth. Till the last year i.e., FY2022, they have invested in 205 startups in India hailing from different sectors of the industry like Information technology, mobile, healthcare, software products and services, e-commerce, media, and cleaning technology. Few of their notable investments are Elevar, Blue Stone, MilkBasket, Cure.fit, SimpliLearn, Dream11, Haptik, Phable, Vogo Automotive, Urban Ladder, Simplilearn, ScoopWhoop, and many more. Among them a large chunk of companies have become unicorn in past couple of years and one of them is Dream11. The farm always chooses the startups which are authentic, perceptive and innovative and help them to accelerate their achievement by properly executing their ideas and goals. Kalaari Capital believes in true leadership with unwavering potential which provides a strong decisiveness to thrive in the industry.

The success of the young entrepreneur will be the key to India’s transformation in the new millennium ~Dhirubhai Ambani

4. Blume Ventures: It is a venture capital farm founded by Karthik Reddy and Sanjay Nath with a mission to reimagine startup financing for India in 2011. The farm is passionate and unreasonable, crazy ambitious, obsessed with solving rigid rock like problems. A distinctive venture firm, one that could move with the speed of an angel investor, yet be institutionalized in its approach, bridging a gap between local angel networks and larger global venture capital firms. Blume Ventures has raised a total of $378.2M across six funds to date, their latest being Blume Ventures Fund IV. They have invested in and helped in building over 100 startups across geographies and verticals. Few of their notable investments are Purplle, Dunzo, LBB, Cashify, HealthifyMe, Unacademy, Intrcity, and many more. Till date they have invested in various sectors of economy like Agritech, Cleantech, B2B services, Commerce, EdTech, SaaS, and FinTech. They believe ‘Transformational Companies are led and built by Revolutionary Founders’. Their mission is to take India to exponential height from where everything will look like Lilliput. They provide a trusted shelter to the young minds to prosper in their future endeavor and make India proud.

5. Nexus Ventures: It is a US based venture capital farm which was founded in 2006 by Suvir Sujan, Sandeep Singhal, and Naren Gupta having three corporate offices in Silicon ValleyCA, Bangalore and Mumbai. Till today they have invested in various startups and made 301 successful deals. They center around two primary investment areas, which are enterprise software companies that are globally and technology-powered businesses within India. They have focused the booming sectors of economy like Consumer products, consumer services, information technology, e-commerce, big data, b2b payments, SaaS, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning. Few of their notable investments are Zomato, FingerprintJS, Entos, Apollo.io, Growth Book, StackBlitz, Delhivery, Unacademy, Postman, Snapdeal, Rapido, OLX, Hasura, Urbanic, Zepto, and many more in which many companies have won over the odds of their path and achieved to become Unicorn.They invest in early stage and seed stage of a startup company. They always present at the thick and thin of a startup and encourage and guide them towards achieving their goals with a broad smile.

In a Nutshell, Venture capitalist gives immense strength to a startup those are in their pupa stage of life and help to come out of their pupa just like a baby caterpillar and butterfly and compete with the whole world with sound knowledge and a mature brain. The startup companies might not get profit at the initial stage, venture capitalist always look at the future potential of the startups without any equity dilution or guarantee. The venture capitalists never leave the side of the startups until they are in an acclaimed position in the market and support them till 8-10 years for motivating them to reach their ambition.