Ed-Fintech Startup GradRight Raises ₹50 Cr in Funding from IvyCap Ventures

Ed-Fintech startup GradRight, which helps students select and finance their higher education, has raised Rs 50 crore in Series A funding round from IvyCap Ventures.

The freshly raised funds will be utilized by the startup to make international higher education more accessible and affordable for students of lower and middle-income students.

Post this funding round, Tej Kapoor, the Managing Partner of IvyCap Ventures will join the Board of GradRight, on behalf of IvyCap Ventures.

Founded in 2019, by Aman Singh and Sasidhar Sista, GradRight is an Ed-FinTech company based between United States and India. It is a SaaS platform that brings together students, banks and universities to power smarter 'Selection' and 'Financing' of college education. Using data science, technology and strategic partnerships across the industry, GradRight is enabling students to find the 'Right University' at the 'Right Cost'.

Over the past two years, GradRight's platform has processed loan requests of over $1.75 billion (INR 14,300 crore) and assisted more than 55,000+ students. The platform offers students a choice of 15 lenders and 13,100 programs across 1,000 universities. With a significant user base of students from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across India, GradRight is bridging the equity gap in accessing global higher education.

D2C Fashion Brand Bewakoof Raises $4 Mn from IvyCap Ventures

Direct to consumer or D2C fashion brand Bewakoof.com has raised funds from IvyCap Ventures. The fresh proceeds would help the company in the growth journey towards a Rs 1000 crore company by FY24. Company intends to invest the funds into superior customer experience, technology and newer product categories as it prepares for next phase of growth.

Bewakoof has raised Rs 30 crore from IvyCap Ventures Trust Fund II. The fresh infusion has come 10 months after their previous fundraise. Last year, Bewakoof had raised Rs 8 crore in May 2020 after raising from Investcorp in October 2019.

With the scale of 200crs+ in revenues in FY19, the brand has managed to maintain a good mix of growth and capital efficiency. It has strengthened its sales to more than 20,000 products per day with a customer base of over 10 million. Due to the pandemic the company expects to be 30-35% lower than pre-COVID numbers, but with better unit economics than the previous year.

Bewakoof.com founded in 2012 by Prabhkiran Singh and Siddharth Munot, is a D2C fashion brand built on social media, with content marketing being a key growth strategy. The brand philosophy is to add light-heartedness to life through its self-expressive products and fun shopping experiences.

The expressions the brand enables on products are relatable and Indian in nature including prints in regional languages (Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Telugu, Gujarati, etc). As the smaller towns of India have shifted online in the last 3 years, the USP of Indian Inspiration and regional languages have helped the brand grow.

The brand is popular for its offerings in casual-wear and has recently launched Indo-fusion ethnic and sleepwear. Along with a range of collaborations with Marvel, DC Comics, Looney Tunes, Star Wars, F.R.I.E.N.D.S, and Disney.

The brand has 4.5 Million fans on Facebook and 1.4 Million followers on Instagram.

“Having grown significantly in the last couple of years, we will continue investing in improving the customer experience through technological innovation and building a strong team. We expect to cross 1000crs in revenue by FY24, which would make it one of the fastest journeys to touch 1000crs by a fashion player in the country." Bewakoof Brands co-founder and Director Prabhkiran Singh said. (existing investor names and about this particular investment as well)

Bewakoof is backed by Institutional Investors like Investcorp, Uniqorn Ventures, Pratithi Trust, and Angels like Kunal, Rohit, Kaushal Aggarwal.

Commenting on the investment, Vikram Gupta, Founder and Managing Partner, IvyCap Ventures Advisors Pvt Ltd, said, "The contemporary offerings of the Bewakoof make it stand out from the rest in the segment of the industry. The Company has built a strong connect with its customers and we believe that our investment in the company will help further establish its leadership in the market. We are extremely happy to work with Prabhkiran and Existing Investors in this next phase of growth."

IvyCap Ventures To Raise Rs500 Crore Venture Debt Fund To Invest In Mid-Stage Startups

Mumbai-based venture capital firm IvyCap Ventures is planning to launch a Rs500 crore venture debt fund in the next three months.

The VC firm typically invests in early-to-growth stage companies. It raised its first fund of Rs240 crore in 2012 which is now fully deployed across 10 investments which includes Purplle.com, Clovia and Bluestone, among others. IvyCap is currently in the process of deploying its second fund of Rs600 crore raised in 2015.

Unlike traditional bank lending, which is provided to profit-making companies, venture debt is available to startups and growth companies that do not have positive cash flows or significant assets to use as collateral. Venture debt providers combine their loans with warrants, or rights to purchase equity, to compensate for the higher risk of default.

"While we are almost in the final stages of our Fund 2, we are also working on launching our own venture debt fund. We have set up the team and see a huge opportunity in this space of AIF (alternative investment fund) II category," said Vikram Gupta, founder and managing partner of IvyCap Ventures in a statement.

The debt fund will focus on mid-stage start-ups, typically in companies at a series B or C fundraise stage. It will look to invest in ticket sizes that would range between Rs20 crore and Rs25 crore.

Vikram further said, "We would deploy the fund where there are no conflicts with IvyCap equity investments and that’s the reason we have set up a completely separate venture debt team with separate decision bodies. The debt fund would help businesses showing current or future positive cash flows in the company. It will look for funding mostly working capital and help in growth of the businesses,"

The Indian venture debt market has been picking up pace in the last couple of years and is now seeing newer firms such as IvyCap that are looking to tap the potential.

In 2008, InnoVen Capital provided the first-ever venture debt of about Rs.5 crore to Sequoia-backed Prizm Payments (now Hitachi Payment Services), and ever since, its popularity has been on the rise. Venture debt is slowly coming of age in India. In 2014, Rahul Khanna and Nilesh Kothari launched a Rs500 crore venture debt fund Trifecta Capital.

Former InnoVen Capital executives Ajay Hattangadi and Vinod Murli too are raising a new venture debt fund of up to Rs1,000 crore, The Economic Times reported in August.

IvyCap is also likely to start raising its third venture capital fund by the middle of 2018, said Vikram to Livemint. The firm is currently planning to raise around $300-400 million for the third fund, which will make it the firm’s largest till date.

The development was first reported in LiveMint.

Fintech Startup ftcash Raises Pre-Series A Funding from IvyCap Ventures and 500 Startups

Riding high on a rapid growth trajectory, ftcash, one of India’s fastest growing financial technology ventures, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a pre-Series A round from venture capital firms IvyCap Ventures and 500 Startups. The fintech start-up will utilize the newly-raised capital in developing products in the payment and loan categories, scaling annual transactions to INR 1,500 crores and disbursing loans to merchants upwards of INR 150 crores. In addition, ftcash will use the funds to drive its expansion plans and scale up operations in Mumbai, Surat, Jaipur and Pune. Maintaining a consistent growth rate of 30-40% month-on-month, ftcash, with its unique business model, has emerged as one of the most promising companies in the Indian fintech market.

ftcash aggregates all payment methods including credit/debit cards, net banking, various mobile wallets, UPI and PayPal to create an open architecture-based platform for merchants to initiate digital payments. The company primarily serves micro-merchants, MSMEs, home-based entrepreneurs, mom and pop stores and large corporates with a merchant base. ftcash facilitates both payments and loans for merchants and allows them to repay loans directly through the platform.

Commenting on the announcement, Sanjeev Chandak, Co-founder and CEO, ftcash, said, “Our business model finds its synergies in payments and loans together as a unified tool to serve and engage with small merchants. However, we have only just scratched the surface as far as capitalizing market opportunities is concerned. We are thankful to IvyCap Ventures and 500 Startups whose faith in our vision will take us a step closer to achieving our goals. Their support will enable us to further accelerate our business operations and set the stage for ftcash to establish itself as an undisputed leader in the high-growth fintech market.”

“Having invested in ftcash since its early stages, we have seen the company achieve remarkable growth in a very short time. The company’s one-of-a-kind business model along with the team’s vision has displayed immense potential, leading to this long-term relationship between our firm and ftcash,” said Vikram Gupta, Founder and Managing Partner, IvyCap Ventures.

Sheel Mohnot, Partner, 500 Startups commented, “The Indian start-up ecosystem is an exciting place for investors and VCs. ftcash has established itself as one of the most innovative companies today in the fintech sector. Through our association with the company, we aim to help the company unlock the vast market potential for its product, possibly on a global scale.”

An innovative fintech startup leveraging technology to bring about market disruption, ftcash is backed by PayPal and has previously won several awards and recognitions across the globe for its differentiated approach.

IvyCamp and Zhucloud Partner to Promote Investment from Chinese Investors into the Indian Startup Ecosystem

IvyCamp, an initiative of IvyCap Ventures and Zhucloud, an initiative of Incapital have announced their partnership to provide Chinese investors access to Indian startups. The partnership will particularly bring visibility for Indian startups on IvyCamp‘s platform to a large base of Chinese investors via Zhucloud.

Over 30 Chinese early stage VC funds such as Cyber Carrier, Fenghou Capital, Legend Capital, Plum Ventures, Grand View Capital, K2VC, Hill House Capital, Fusion Capital, Heli Capital and Chengwei Capital, are a part of this initiative. These are early stage funds that invest from USD 200K up to USD 2 Million in early stage startups and are expected to scout for and invest in Indian startups in Healthcare, Fintech. E-commerce and IOT.

Over the next few months the partnership will facilitate pitches by startups to this pool of investors by organising pitch events in the cities of Mumbai and Bangalore in November 2016. The event is designed to provide a platform to Chinese investors to interact directly with Indian startups.

Mr. Eric Shu, Director of Incapital said : "We are very excited to partner with IvyCamp that has a strong global Alumni connect which mirrors our philosophy. We have seen interest from the Chinese investment community to invest in Indian Startups and through this partnership we aim to facilitate these investments"

IvyCamp & Zhucloud will also cross leverage knowledge, by getting Chinese mentors who are highly accomplished in their fields of work and leading Chinese Incubators and Accelerators onto the IvyCamp platform to enable huge value add to the Indian startup ecosystem.

Dr.. Anju Gupta, President & Cofounder of IvyCamp said: "This partnership is another step forward in promoting our Indian startups globally and helping them get the resources and knowledge they need to be successful. Our philosophy to leverage the Alumni networks to help entrepreneurs be successful resonates with ecosystems across countries and this partnership is an example of how powerful this connect can be”.

IvyCamp is India's first Unified Innovation and Entrepreneurship Platform, that leverages the Global Alumni Networks to help entrepreneurs become successful. Ivycamp not only supports entrepreneurs but actually helps build new entrepreneurs, by connecting them with mentors, investors, incubation centres and other resources - all built through Alumni networks. In addition, through the platform, Ivycamp partners with educational institutions to connect, support and grow its entrepreneurial ecosystems.

This collaboration is yet another sign of increasing global interest in India’s start-up landscape.As per NASSCOM, India is home to the third largest base for startups in the world. It is a hyper growth inflection point for the Indian start-up ecosystem, with growth, capital and acquisitions all coming together creating a perfect storm. Key indicators such as opportunities existing in the domestic market, access to capital/mentors, and increased M&A and consolidation activities clearly point towards the new evolution of the ecosystem. Given this pace of growth, if the landscape continues to evolve, then by the end of 2020 more than 11,500 start-ups are expected to get established in India, generating employment opportunities for more than 250,000 people.

Image Source: ShutterStock

BlueStone.com Raises Rs 200 Cr in Series D Round from IIFL, Accel and Others

BlueStone.com, India’s leading online destination for fine jewellery, has raised a fresh round of funding led by IIFL and Accel along with Kalaari Capital, RB Investments and IvyCap Ventures. The ₹200 crore fund will enable the company to grow the category and strengthen its leadership position.

Globally, the online jewellery segment is witnessing exponential growth and is expected to capture 10% of total jewellery sales by 2020. The Indian precious jewellery market which is currently valued at $60 billion is projected to cross the $1 10 billion mark in the next five years with online contribution estimated to be in the $2 – 3 billion range.

Currently, the online jewellery segment in India contributes less than 0.5% but is growing at 5X YoY as compared to traditional jewellery players. BlueStone.com has planned major investments in expanding design and manufacturing capacity as well as marketing initiatives to grow the online jewellery segment.

According to Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Founder and CEO, BlueStone.com, “BlueStone.com pioneered the category of online fine jewellery in 2011 and in a short span of five years has captured majority market share. We are now targeting a four-fold increase in revenues to touch Rs 1000 crore by 2018 and we want to achieve this goal in a profitable and sustainable manner. The new round of investments underscores the success of the company’s vertically integrated full stack online first business model and the enormous untapped potential in the jewellery category.”

Prashanth Prakash, Partner, Accel Partners said, “BlueStone.com has posted strong, sustained growth and set several benchmarks in the online jewellery retail industry in India like leveraging technologies such as 3D Visual Merchanding to omni-channel initiative of Home Try-On. We are committed to extend our association with BlueStone.com as we see immense potential in the brand.”

Speaking on the latest fund raise, Vani Kola, Managing Director, Kalaari Capital said, “BlueStone.com has a high quality team and has grown rapidly over the last year. With the strong foundation and this capital infusion, we believe BlueStone.com is well positioned to build a large online jewellery brand in India.”

BlueStone.com offers over 5,000 unique jewellery designs and plans to scale to 30,000 designs in the next three years. With design, manufacturing and logistics capabilities built in-house, the brand is able to quickly expand its manufacturing capabilities and customize its design offerings as per market trends.

Headquartered in Bangalore, BlueStone.com had earlier raised funds from Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, IvyCap Ventures and Saama Capital. Mr Ratan Tata and Ms Meena Ganesh (CEO of Portea) have also invested in the company. With the latest fund raise, the total funding received by BlueStone.com is $60 million.

Image - Gaurav Kushwaha, CEO and Co-founder, BlueStone

NASSCOM 10,000 Startups Collaborates With IVYCamp to Build an IoT Centered Entrepreneurship Ecosystem

NASSCOM 10000 StartUps along with IvyCamp, an initiative of IvyCap Ventures has announced a strategic alliance to connect startups, investors, mentors and industry bodies to converge and explore ways of working together to make the right kind of impact and come up with solutions that change the way people live and industries work. The alliance will look at developing strategies and initiatives to bolster the IOT movement in Indian StartUp Ecosystem.

NASSCOM 10000 StartUps has revolutionized the startup ecosystem by bringing together valuable insights from Industry leaders, best in class StartUps providing a window of opportunity to explore what the investors are looking at in a startup before funding. The IvyCamp Platform will connect the industry participants to entrepreneurs for providing guidance on formulating & driving the IOT business. Activities through the year will focus on seeking out, supporting and growing IOT innovations and ventures.

Speaking on the collaboration, Rajat Tandon, Vice President, NASSCOM 10,000 startups said, “India’s digital revolution is at the tip of transformation right now. NASSCOM 10000 has been consistent in creating a sustainable ecosystem for the technology led products. The potential scope of disruptive technologies in India is vast, as they can have a massive economic impact. IOT is one such sector which is gradually gaining popularity. With this collaboration with IvyCamp, we aim to promote an IOT ecosystem, which is vibrant & at the same time innovative, which will help our country attain a leadership role in this field.”

One of the key activities under this partnership will be to host an annual event R-IOT, Rendezvous for the IOT Ecosystem. The first event will be held in Mumbai on the 1^st of July 2016 at the NASSCOM 10K StartUp Warehouse, Navi Mumbai to bring together innovators, mentors, investors and corporates in the IOT space to educate the community on the latest innovations in IOT, challenges that the innovators face today and what is needed from the mentor and investor community. The event will provide an opportunity to the IOT StartUps to demo their products to investors, mentors and corporate partners. Ivycamp will also be hosting an investor education program on financing IOT startups.

Speaking on this occasion, Mr. Vikram Gupta, CEO & Managing Partner - IvyCap Ventures said, “This being an age of Internet Of Things (IOT), the startups today define the momentum of our economy. We are excited to announce the collaboration between NASSCOM 10000 StartUps and IvyCamp.Through this association, we will provide a platform to the budding entrepreneurs to connect with the industry veterans to seek guidance for formulating and driving the IOT innovations and help the ventures grow.”

About IvyCap Ventures

IvyCamp is India’s first unified technology based platform for innovation and entrepreneurship. Its parent – IvyCap Ventures is raising its second fund of Rs 600 crs. IvyCap has raised and deployed Rs 250 crore in its maiden fund last year. Ivycamp has facilitated investments in early stage startups like FT cash, Grabon rent and has connected various startups to industry mentors.

About NASSCOM 10,000 Startups

10,000 Start-ups is an ambitious attempt by NASSCOM to scale up the start-up ecosystem in India by 10x. 10,000 Start-ups aims to enable incubation, funding and support for 10,000 technology start-ups in India over the next ten years. The program’s vision is to foster entrepreneurship, build entrepreneurial capabilities at scale and strengthen early stage support for tech start-ups. The initiative brings together key stakeholders of the ecosystem including start-up incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, start-up support groups, mentors, and technology corporations. Since its launch in April 2013, we’ve done about 600 events in 25 cities of the country which were attended by a whopping 30,000 attendees and received 11,000 Applicants, 1100 Start-ups Shortlists, and 150 Impacts. The program is supported by Google for Entrepreneurs, Microsoft Ventures, Kotak, Amazon Web Services and IBM.

Image Source: ShutterStock

IvyCap Ventures Brings on Board Senior Professional from India Focused Private Equity Fund

Ivycap Ventures has confirmed the appointment of Lipika Rajpal, making an addition to their senior level investment team. Lipika has joined as a Senior Investment Professional and will be providing strategic muscle to potential start-ups.

Lipika has nine years of experience in Private Equity investing, investment banking and has worked with CX Partners, an India focussed Private Equity fund, the Royal Bank of Scotland and SBI Capital Markets. In her last role, she was a part of the Investment Team of the CX Intermediate Capital Fund. Her investing experience spans sectors such as pharma, healthcare, infrastructure, education, auto etc.

Prior to CX Partners, Lipika worked with SBI Capital Markets where she focused on arranging project finance of over $6 billion for large corporations in the oil and gas and chemicals sector. She has also worked as a portfolio manager with the Royal Bank of Scotland (erstwhile ABN Amro Bank), where she underwrote local and foreign currency financing of over $10 billion for companies across sectors such as FMCG, metals and mining.

Lipika earned her MBA from SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai, and has a Bachelors of Commerce from Christ College, Bangalore.

Commenting on the appointment, Vikram Gupta, CEO & Managing Partner of IvyCap Ventures said, “It is a pleasure to have Lipika on board with us, and she brings along a wealth of practical experience that will be beneficial not only to our portfolio companies, but also to the potential new startups. We are looking forward to working with her. “

The latest hire by IvyCap Ventures comes at a time when the sector-agnostic, early-to-mid-stage investment firm is in the process of raising its second fund – IvyCap Trust Fund-II – while also actively investing out of the same.

About IvyCap Ventures Advisors Private Limited:

IvyCap Ventures Advisors Private Limited, founded by Vikram Gupta is a Venture Capital Fund Management Company with an approach to focus on high-quality professional entrepreneurs from the premier education institutions of the country. It focuses on investing in early and growth stage companies across sectors such as Healthcare, Education, Food based businesses, Technology. E/m-Commerce and other innovation oriented businesses. They believe that in the case of early/growth stage companies, a strong collaborative approach is critical for success and that is what their Board of Mentors bring to the projects they get involved with. They have the required skills, industry experience and passion to support creation of distinct value in their portfolio companies.

Their portfolio includes Reuters Market Light – Into Agriculture and Farming Industry, Aujus – Information & Technology Services, Fieldez – Computer Software, Vinculum – Information & Technology Services, Leixir Lab Group – Medical, eShakti – Consumer/Online Retail, Purplle – Beauty & Grooming, Sokrati – Digital Advertising Technology, Clovia – Online Lingerie/Nightwear, Bluestone.com – Online Jewellery.

Image Source: ShutterStock

GrabOnRent Raises Pre-Series A Investment from IvyCap Ventures and Unicorn Ventures

GrabOnRent, the largest on-demand product rental marketplace in India, today announced that it has raised pre-series A funding from the IvyCamp platform. IvyCap Ventures is a lead investor in this round with Unicorn India Ventures participating as co-investors. Founded in September 2015, the company is an early mover in this space and focuses on connecting rental product suppliers with consumers facilitating product discovery, quality assurance, smooth payments and logistics support through the platform which otherwise is cumbersome in the offline rental industry.

GrabOnRent helps users rent products across categories like furniture, appliances, cameras, adventure gear and even helps event planners by providing event supplies on rent. The young company also enables renting of cool gadgets such as Pebble Smartwatch, Kindle e-book readers and Hoverboards. It believes that having access to products is more useful than ownership of the product. Renting as a solution helps customers who are looking to use products for a shorter or unsure duration. Also, it provides an end-user to try a product before buying at a fraction of the cost. With rising and unstable economy, renting forms an integral part of sharing economy and is set to shape the future economy.

The founding team comprises of three IIT Guwahati graduates who have worked across firms like Flipkart Logistics and Hewlett Packard. The core team has strong capabilities across product, technology and operations. The funding is primarily for aggressive customer and vendor acquisition along with further product development.

Speaking on the occasion, Shubham Jain, Co-founder and CEO of GrabOnRent said, “Consumer facing businesses are hard to build but with a huge influx of people in the urban areas, the target segment for GrabOnRent is strengthening ever since. Lending and sharing is natural, but it is limited to households. GrabOnRent envisions to extend alternate usage methods to its consumers who do not want to hold too many assets. Accessibility to products is the king."

In India, the product rental industry is extremely disorganized. There are offline players who rent used-goods but are yet to look at renting as a viable earning alternative to selling. The platform educates and empowers such vendors to make their products available to a much larger audience via the GrabOnRent platform. The GrabOnRent platform helps them in reducing logistical hassles and enables secure payments along with offering financing and insurance options.

Shubham highlighted the latent demand in the consumer market. He says, "The major focus of the company is to generate awareness towards viability of renting products. One doesn't need to scratch their head in deciding in favor of renting against buying if the duration of usage is limited. Our suppliers are quick to adapt to our technologies and we foresee more suppliers joining the platform in the coming months."

“We got connected with GrabOnRent through the IvyCamp platform, we know the rental market is a very large opportunity, and we believe GrabOnRent has created a differentiated business model to address this market segment. It helps that several macro factors that have converged today make this business attractive – be it a highly mobile urban demographic that is the initial target market or even the increasing comfort levels with online transactions in general. All this, coupled with GrabOnRent unique team strengths and capabilities, have been continuously reflected in the company’s growth since inception, and we are excited to partner with them in the next phase of this journey. This is amongst the first few investments of IvyCap Ventures Trust Fund II and forms part of our early stage strategy, through which we have allocated INR 60 Cr. for early stage investments via the IvyCamp platform.” said Vikram Gupta, Founder and Managing Partner of IvyCap Ventures. “In addition, we are also looking forward to adding significant value to GrabOnRent through our network of relationships.”

Bhaskar Majumdar Managing Partner at Unicorn India Ventures said “We have been observing and interacting with the GrabOnRent team and seen them develop their business proposition for over six months. As a thesis, Unicorn believes in the shared economy and we see this trend growing larger in India given the macro-environment and the demography.  As always, we shall be integrally involved in scaling up the business which we feel can take multiple dimensions”.

IvyCap Ventures Raises $45M for Its Second Fund

IvyCap Ventures which is known for investing in early and growth stage companies, has raised around $45 million for the first close of its second fund of $90 million with sponsor investor IIT Alumni Trust chipping in $18 million. Institutional investors from the first fund have also extended their commitment to the new fund.

Founded in 2011 by Vikram Gupta, Norbert Fernandes and Vishal Gauri, Ivy Cap Ventures has earmarked 90% of its Fund 2 for investments in series A and B rounds. It has also set aside a corpus of around $9 million for IvyCap Startup Platform. Ivy Cap Fund 2 has already invested in TaskBob and FTCash.

The firm has done a seed investment of $148.49K in FT Cash and led the series A round of Taskbob of around $4.5 million. It focuses on investing in Healthcare, Education, Food based businesses, technology, eCommerce & mCommerce domains and generally invests $4-5 million by picking up 25%-35% stake in each of its portfolio companies.

The other investment is due and will be announced by end of April or at the beginning of May.

From its Trust Fund – I, it invested in several startups, including RML Information Services Private, Aujas Networks, FieldEz, Vinculum,Leixir Dental Labs, eShakti, Purplle, Sokrati, Clovia and BlueStone.

In addition, IvyCap is also working towards building a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem across educational institutions of the country. Towards this goal, the VC firm has created a "Give Back" program to share part of its own profits with the educational system of the country, primarily to encourage further entrepreneurship.

IvyCap Ventures Raises $45M for Its Second Fund

IvyCap Ventures which is known for investing in early and growth stage companies, has raised around $45 million for the first close of its second fund of $90 million with sponsor investor IIT Alumni Trust chipping in $18 million. Institutional investors from the first fund have also extended their commitment to the new fund.

Founded in 2011 by Vikram Gupta, Norbert Fernandes and Vishal Gauri, Ivy Cap Ventures has earmarked 90% of its Fund 2 for investments in series A and B rounds. It has also set aside a corpus of around $9 million for IvyCap Startup Platform. Ivy Cap Fund 2 has already invested in TaskBob and FTCash.

The firm has done a seed investment of $148.49K in FT Cash and led the series A round of Taskbob of around $4.5 million. It focuses on investing in Healthcare, Education, Food based businesses, technology, eCommerce & mCommerce domains and generally invests $4-5 million by picking up 25%-35% stake in each of its portfolio companies.

The other investment is due and will be announced by end of April or at the beginning of May.

From its Trust Fund – I, it invested in several startups, including RML Information Services Private, Aujas Networks, FieldEz, Vinculum,Leixir Dental Labs, eShakti, Purplle, Sokrati, Clovia and BlueStone.

In addition, IvyCap is also working towards building a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem across educational institutions of the country. Towards this goal, the VC firm has created a "Give Back" program to share part of its own profits with the educational system of the country, primarily to encourage further entrepreneurship.