Anthos Capital

We are the venture investment arm of the Kering Group, acquiring minority holdings in startups. Kering Ventures aims to increase Kering Digital and Innovation‘s impact by supporting emerging leaders at the intersection of technology, commerce and culture. What we offer We want to share our passion for imagining the future of Luxury. We connect entrepreneurs with our ecosystem, which comprises our Houses and international network. We bring business opportunities, and share our luxury expertise. What we are looking for We back extraordinary entrepreneurs who have a clearly-articulated vision, who are willing to change the rules of consumer demand and are ready to craft outstanding customer experiences. We look for brands and technologies with billion-dollar market opportunities in the consumer industries, particularly in the Fashion, Beauty, and Lifestyle segments. Our investment focus is early stage, with tickets ranging from €1M to €10M.

Bold. Brave. Brilliant. Brazen. The founders we back are all this, and more. They are unreasonable, they are crazy ambitious, obsessed with solving hard, gnarly problems. Problems whose solutions transform lives and impact society. And, it takes a revolutionary founder, and a transformational company to solve these problems, and effect change. We back these transformational companies, and their revolutionary founders early, and remain lifelong partners. How does Blume evaluate early stage startups? In our framework, we look at three criteria to evaluate startups – size of market or opportunity, team quality and finally, investability or probability of the next round of capital. Our approximate weightage for Opportunity : Team : Investability is 40 : 40 : 20. Let us double click on these three criteria. Market size or opportunity: Pick too small a market and even the best team can’t build a large scalable business. The best founders know how to reshape a market opportunity and build solutions to fit the largest of the market opportunities. That said, one has to begin with the aggregate opportunity being very large. For example, are Ola and Uber a ride hailing app or a large scale urban transportation business? The market size expands 5-10x when the latter is applied. At Blume, we try to find a portfolio balance between founders who can chase a large market opportunity domestically or build a tech-led differentiated product for global markets (which increase Founding teams: These are the most important variables for us or even most VCs at our stage. In every decision, once the other two factors are seen as a go, the clincher element in a yes/no decision boils down to the founding team – their expertise in solving for this space, as well as the integrity, mission, passion and persistence that one can gauge at this early stage of business. Investability or probability of next rounds of capital: The reality of how the later stage funding market is shaped to take risky bets in the ecosystem is important to consider while funding, especially in young and concentrated ecosystems like India, and that’s why we attribute 20% weightage to this element in India. We force ourselves to evaluate how much capital may be required to build to exitable scale and how challenging it is to raise that capital. As the funding ecosystem matures, we may shrink weightage of this in the future. Great founders overcome all of this but if we can select such that we have better odds at the starting point, why not? The above framework helps us shortlist but finally, it is a (increasingly improving) trained gut call that ends up building out the portfolio. What is Blume's investment criteria? Blume prefers ventures that have achieved some degree of customer validation, where the product is already launched in market and we are getting customer signups and feedback. We do make exceptions on the above for seasoned operators and second-time founders, but typically with first-time founders, we do not do idea stage or pre-MVP investments. If you are a B2B startup or an ecommerce / consumer transaction play, an annualised revenue rate (or revenues) of $375k (₹3cr) and above is a good milestone to reach out to us. If you are a marketplace startup, then reach out to us when you are nearing or have crossed a monthly GMV of ₹50 lacs a month. If you are a consumer app that isn't monetising yet, then ping us when you near or cross MAUs of 25k / DAUs of 5k. The above are broad guidelines, and not hard rules. We do make exceptions. If in doubt, reach out! How much does Blume invest? We are a seed / pre-Series A fund. While we are fairly flexible on the investment quantum, typically we have seen our investments range across from $1.5 to $3m (₹12 to 24 crs). We do optimise however for a stake of anywhere from 12 to 20%. These stake requirements reflect the depth and extent of support we provide to the startup – from fundraising and hiring to business development etc. We also anticipate the rounds of dilution that every successful startup will undergo, and the desired holding that we need to hold at the point of exit. Does Blume invest in international startups? We invest in startups that are Indian at heart or origin, but are willing to conquer the world market if needed to build scale. About a third of our portfolio is of this nature – taking Indian engineering skills to build products for global markets. Unfortunately, We DO NOT invest in startups that are international and have NO strong Indian connection / founders. We are also strong believers that to invest as a ‘generalist tech VC’ as we are, we need to be more and more focussed on a particular geography. We need to see as much of the available annual pipeline to know that we’ve truly picked 10 great founders / startups to invest in. We have no such advantage when we are looking outside the country; which is why we stay away from the temptation of looking at pipeline from international markets. What kind of sectors does Blume invest in? With our new Fund, our fourth since inception, we are looking to invest about 60-65% of the new fund in domestic-heavy sectors such as healthcare, financial services, commerce and brands, jobs and education, and digital media and gaming. The other 35-40% of the fund will focus on SaaS, and DeepTech (including CleanTech, manufacturing, blockchain) companies, typically in B2B, that can innovate and engineer with local talent pools, and yet scale globally. Does Blume have a preference between B2B and B2C? We like both. India is a consumer market that is poised to explode, as people move to the digital economy to spend an increasingly larger share of their wallet’s purchasing power. That makes it attractive to build a strong consumer proposition in India. And thus our B2C portfolio. We are also now very good at taking our science and engineering skills in software and other areas, and building commercial applications at scale, often for the global market. These constitute the majority of B2B ideas in our portfolio and we like this space a lot. Where do I send my pitch? How do I reach out to Blume? We get anywhere between 4,000 to 5,000 ideas pitched to us annually, across the team, across all formats. This includes referrals, cold mails, DMs on social channels etc. We have given up counting :) We invest in about 10-12 of these per year. As Blume has grown, we've looked at the empirical data and discovered that the vast majority of our investments were referrals from our contacts in the ecosystem. You can count the exceptions to this rule with one hand in every cycle, and still have a few fingers to spare! These referrals come from our own founders we have backed, other founders who know that we will do right by their angel investments and our extensive set of friends, investors and well wishers in the ecosystem. The exceptions, while not impossible, are indeed rare. Ceteris paribus (all things considered), you are better off reaching us through a trusted common friend. In a highly networked startup ecosystem, it is not that hard to reach us through the strongest possible mutual connection. But if that is not possible, do reach out to us cold. Your email will certainly be read, even if it is not always responded to. We have ensured that our internal systems catch every pitch - cold or warm or hot. When writing in cold, a considered and researched mail (much like a quality college application) is the only way to attempt such a reach out. Please check out the team page, find the best person in the Investment team who has invested in and / or covers the sector you're building in. Do check out their social profiles (LinkedIn, Twitter) to access their contact info. Our email ids are not hard to guess as well! Preferably write to one person at a time, in the firm. The above are good principles for you irrespective of which firm you approach / pitch to. Nothing works better than a warm, referred introduction - it always gets the rightful attention. Please note that we have done away with a pitch form, or a common email id. From our experience, we found that the volume of inbound traffic was indeed high, but not always relevant, and thus almost impossible to assign a resource to just monitor these inbound gates.

Muse Capital is an early stage venture fund investing in consumer tech, with a focus on large underserved markets poised for disruption. They focus on investing in products, services and solutions to meet the needs of tomorrow’s increasingly diverse society across how we care (women’s health, digital health, and childcare), how we live (wellness and sustainability), and how we play (gaming, entertainment, web3, and sports tech). Muse Capital’s expertise is sourcing and executing on business development opportunities for their entrepreneurs, leveraging the partners 20+ years of accelerating and operating businesses in both private and public sectors, with their global network of decision makers across F500's, entertainment, sports teams/owners, global investors, and world class tech entrepreneurs. Given their highly strategic value add, they are able to access oversubscribed deals and invest before or alongside some of the top funds in the valley including Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, Forerunner, and Lightspeed to name just a few. Muse Capital’s current fund is a $45m platform dedicated to doubling down on their established track record across the consumer space, and a knack for spotting super-trends and talent early on. Their portfolio of 40+ investments includes Clarity Money (sold to Goldman Sachs), Mahmee (telehealth for new mothers, series A lead by Goldman Sachs), Midi (disrupting the $50B menopause space), Kinside (digitizing the $150B childcare industry), and Beekeeper’s Naturals (replacing the modern medicine cabinet with natural products). The team has also gained exclusive access for their strategic LPs to direct investments into prestigious later stage deals including Robinhood and Byju’s. As a female lead team of conscious capitalists, Muse Capital is a staunch advocate for diversity as better business, and proud to have a portfolio which is 50% minority/female.

We believe that by investing in the brands and technologies that consumers want and use, we can help shape a brighter future, not only for consumers but also for the planet. Our vision is to empower the next generation of consumer-focused disruptors by providing them with the resources and support they need to transform the way consumers live and work. Investing in startups at the earliest stages, and then helping them innovate and scale through XRC’s unique and disruptive capital and service platform, will allow us to deliver the highest value to our entrepreneurs, strategic partners and limited partners. Who We Are XRC Ventures is a venture capital firm and startup accelerator for the next generation of disruptors in the retail technology, consumer healthtech, and consumer goods sectors. With support from our world-class retailer and eco-system partners, XRC Ventures has become the first design-centric retail innovation ecosystem of its kind. Our Funds Accelerator Fund. Invests in pre-Seed to Series A companies in retail technology, consumer goods and the consumer healthtech. Brand Capital Fund. Invests Seed to Series A consumer product companies in beauty, personal care, home goods, and health and wellness categories. Opportunity Fund. Invests in post-Seed to Series A companies in the next generation of retail technology and consumer goods. We co-invest alongside top venture capital funds and provide follow-on capital to select XRC Ventures alumni scaling their companies beyond product market fit and achieving exponential growth. Investment POV At XRC, we look for visionary founders who are leveraging technology to positively change how humans live their lives as consumers. The need for technology in consumer serving businesses, combined with the breathtakingly rapid advancement of AI and other technologies, makes the consumer tech space one of the most dynamic areas for early stage investing. We are excited to be well-connected and right in the middle of this exciting industry. We articulate on our investment thesis in our Investment POV, which in turn drives our focus on the following four core innovation areas: Commerce Enablement. Startups fueling the digital transformation of retail. We're focusing on areas such as AI automation, distributed commerce platforms, consumer fintech, loyalty tech, and the evolution of commerce supply chains. These ventures will help redefine commerce and create a seamless buying experience. Emergent Channels and Revenue. Companies reshaping how consumers discover, engage with, and purchase products/services, inventing entirely new paths to customers, and classes of revenue. This includes shoppable content, product-as-a-channel, loyalty commerce, service retailing, trans-channel experiential retailing, and AI bot-mediated commerce. Consumer Healthtech. Ventures making personalized health outcomes more accessible and efficient. This includes technology platforms for consumer health, remote health services, subscription wellness, health outcomes-as-a-service, and aging-in-place & assured living solutions. Sustainable Commerce. Businesses driving the shift towards a more sustainable and circular economy. This includes on-demand local manufacturing, alternatives to ownership, alternative materials, subscription retail, and sustainable consumer finance.

As a Certified B Corporation, Five V meets the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency to balance purpose and profit. The core principle of Five V is alignment. We believe in full alignment between ourselves and the businesses we invest in. The Five V team is the biggest investor in our funds. We share risk and reward with the businesses we partner with and our investor network. As a result of this alignment principle, Five V has an extraordinary group of investors forming a powerful and unique network across Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe. Five V contributes strategically to our portfolio companies through a collaborative approach that allows each business to reach its full potential and to create value for all stakeholders. Our team is dedicated to assisting our portfolio companies by leveraging our extensive networks and international experience. Five V seeks established, leading businesses, across all industries, that are on the front foot of technology, which generate sustainable earnings and cashflow, and have opportunities for strong growth. Our aim is to support our portfolio companies to build sustainable leading positions in Australia or overseas. Five V Fund IV has in excess of $550m of long-term capital available to partner with leading founders and businesses in Australia and New Zealand. Fund IV’s capital sits alongside our Fund I, Fund II and Fund III portfolios, taking our current funds under management to over $1.3b. We are fortunate to be investors in a number of great companies including: Mantel Group, Automic Group, Penten, Openway Food Co, Monson Agencies, APP Corporation, Totara Learning, Zenith Group, Universal Store, Probe Group, Education Perfect, Plenti, Madman Entertainment, Canva and SiteMinder.

Red Sea Ventures is a leading NY-based, pre-seed and seed stage venture firm investing in tech-enabled, user-centric consumer and B2B startups. In our first fund, we invested in category leading companies across sectors including Allbirds, Convoy, Nest, Eargo, Prose, Genies, Joor, and Sweetgreen. We are looking to partner with mission driven founders seeking to transform the economy and the lives of their teams and users. We are an entrepreneurial firm that values friendliness, humility, camaraderie, collaboration, determination, independence, and hustle with a commitment to performance. We are building RSV as a platform for community; bringing together our visionary founders, LPs, and relationships at large to support the companies we choose to partner with.