Airbus To Set Up VC Arm For Startups in India

The early-stage investment arm of European aircraft manufacturer Airbus, Airbus Ventures has informed that it is the process of setting up an independent investment arm in India. With this investment arm, the firm will infuse money in the aerospace and non-aerospace startups such as autonomous vehicles, electric energy, IoT and cyber security etc. The size of the India fund is yet to be disclosed.

Airbus Ventures, which invests in seed and first round in the global aerospace ecosystem, have a corpus of $150 million that the VC firm has put money in 13 startups across North America, Europe, Israel, and Japan.

Commenting on the development, Francois Auque, chairman of the fund's general partner entity told TOI, “The financing vehicle should be ready by next year.”

Vc Arm will be making its investment in the Indian startups by associating with Airbus Bizlab, the aerospace business accelerator that has a presence in Bengaluru, apart from in Toulouse in France and Hamburg in Germany.

According to the firm, it always co-invests with other companies, with funding ranging from 750,000 euros for a seed round to about 3 million euros for Series A for about 10% stake.

Further company highlights that the funding can go up to 5 million euros for a single company; any higher investment requires the nod of the parent body.

Headquartered in Silicon Valley and Paris, Airbus Ventures is yet to invest in any company that has graduated out of its Bizlabs.

Bizlab Bengaluru recently saw the culmination of its second accelerator programme of five companies. In March 2016, four Indian startups had defeated 76 other startups to win the race to be selected in Airbus BizLab’s six-month business accelerator program. The selected four are Open Turf, Blue Morfo, Shoonya Games and Qualitas.

Hinduja BPO to set up VC arm to invest in Indian startup

The business process outsourcing arm of Hinduja group called the Hinduja Global Solutions is in the midst of setting up a corporate venture capital arm in order to tap into the pool of the most innovative and different  technologies being manufactured by startups all around the world.  Strictly following the route charted to them by the Indian Information Technology Industry, the BPO have their eyes set on startups to drive innovation.

In response to this move by Hinduja Global Solutions, rival FirstSource solutions has also started evaluating a few analytics startups in order to invest in them.

According to Partha DeSarkar's statement to Economic Times, "We understood that there are companies out there that have innovative technologies that need funding and access to markets and that we couldn't build all these solutions in house. So the corporate venture arm helps us achieve that". Partha DeSarkar is the Chief Executive at Hinduja Global.

The company has decided to keep aside some 20-30 million dollars and has also formed a team of some 10 people who will keep this process of investments going. The company is specifically looking for startups in healthcare, analytics and multi-channel customer care among various others. Location of the startup is not considered as a barrier for the company.

According to Partha, the company will look wherever they find innovation-whether it is India, Israel or Silicon Valley. She also added that they will only make second stage investment when the startup has proven its idea.

 

Hinduja BPO to set up VC arm to invest in Indian startup

The business process outsourcing arm of Hinduja group called the Hinduja Global Solutions is in the midst of setting up a corporate venture capital arm in order to tap into the pool of the most innovative and different  technologies being manufactured by startups all around the world.  Strictly following the route charted to them by the Indian Information Technology Industry, the BPO have their eyes set on startups to drive innovation.

In response to this move by Hinduja Global Solutions, rival FirstSource solutions has also started evaluating a few analytics startups in order to invest in them.

According to Partha DeSarkar's statement to Economic Times, "We understood that there are companies out there that have innovative technologies that need funding and access to markets and that we couldn't build all these solutions in house. So the corporate venture arm helps us achieve that". Partha DeSarkar is the Chief Executive at Hinduja Global.

The company has decided to keep aside some 20-30 million dollars and has also formed a team of some 10 people who will keep this process of investments going. The company is specifically looking for startups in healthcare, analytics and multi-channel customer care among various others. Location of the startup is not considered as a barrier for the company.

According to Partha, the company will look wherever they find innovation-whether it is India, Israel or Silicon Valley. She also added that they will only make second stage investment when the startup has proven its idea.