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We partner with founders building a more financially inclusive world. Quona has been backing fintech companies driving financial inclusion in emerging markets since 2015. Now, the rest of the world is taking note, and fintech and embedded finance models continue to dominate venture globally. In 2021, global fintech funding reached a record $132 billion, accounting for 21% of all venture dollars. Everyone talks about impact, but few deliver numbers to back the noise. 135M lives touched: 80% of which were underserved 23.5M retail customers served: 88% of which were underserved 8.5M MSMEs served: 78% of which were underserved 25.5K jobs created by portfolio companies: 36% held by women WHAT WE’RE ABOUT It takes more than money to make a startup successful. At the heart of Quona is our sense of connection - to founders, to our investors, and to the markets we serve across the globe. When we invest, we put our global and local experience to work, helping portfolio companies maximize impact and financial returns. ACCION PARTNERSHIP Before becoming an independent venture firm in 2015, Quona got its start inside of Accion, a global nonprofit committed to creating a financially inclusive world. Today Quona and its portfolio still benefit from Accion’s global presence, institutional relationships, and deep history of impact investing in emerging markets.

As one of the world's largest financial services organisations, we have the power of scale to develop and deploy smart solutions globally, with a focus on delivering excellent customer experiences. Our areas of expertise Security, crime prevention and identity Protecting the bank and its customers against threats Cybersecurity Compliance tools Digital identity Biometrics Cloud, data and analytics Utilising data and the Cloud to provide enhanced services in a secure manner Foundation tools (Data storage & management, artificial intelligence / machine learning) Governance Insights Decisioning Operational Efficiency Digitising workflows Automation No code development (NCD) Paper digitisation Communications Future of work Banking access Digital access to Banking services anytime, anywhere Open finance Banking as a service (BaaS) Embedded finance Payments Platforms & networks Customer interaction Emerging Technology Preparing for the future of Banking Quantum computing Internet of things (IoT) 5G technology Digital assets Borderless financial Services Exploring all aspects of Financial Services and its intersection with adjacent industries Neo FS Smart cities Real estate Automotive Wellness Energy Subscription services Impact & Sustainability Investing to catalyse positive change Environmental Social & corporate governance (ESG) Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Education

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.

Making investments that produce more than financial returns. What we care about Investment Returns. We don’t shy away from talking about our 22-year track record. Rather, we’re incredibly proud of posting top decile investment returns. But a top tier investment record is only one part of our story. Strategic Venture Capital. Before insurance companies embraced strategic investing, we were making insurtech/fintech venture investments on behalf of insurance companies. The limited partners in our Inter-Atlantic funds are predominantly insurance companies strategically interested in the insurtech/fintech ecosystem. Our investors gain strategic insights from our venture capital activities, and our portfolio companies benefit from strategic connections to our 20 insurance company limited partners. Financial Empowerment. Before financial empowerment became a buzzword, our portfolio companies were empowering millions. While each of our portfolio companies strives to be a great corporate citizen, the majority have focused on underserved individuals and small businesses. Think of: NetSpend supplying an immigrant with his first payment card; Homeowners of America issuing affordable home insurance to a first-time home buyer; Higher One providing a college freshman with her first bank account; Marqeta powering a modern card issuing platform for e-commerce startups; Clearcover offering low cost auto insurance; Credit Sesame providing a millennial with her free credit report analysis. Climate Change. In hundreds of ways, fintech/insurtech has decreased the environmental footprint of financial services. On the other hand, certain new technologies are harmful to the earth's climate. IA Capital has not and will not invest in companies that encourage proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining or other activities that require extreme amounts of power consumption. Click here to read more about IA Capital and climate change. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. IA Capital is committed to supporting a diverse group of founders. Underrepresented founders account for 31% of our portfolio. More specifically, Black and Latinx founders account for 12% of our portfolio versus a VC-industry average of 2%. Our partner Rick Viton is a leader in the Hispanic financial community and an advocate for financial services inclusion. We remain committed to principles of diversity and transparency. IA. IA can stand for investment advisors or independent agents, two of insurtech’s most important constituencies and a major focus of ours. IA can stand for Iowa, an insurance hub and home to some of our limited partners. In our case, IA stands for Inter-Atlantic, which befits the three major insurance centers of New York, London, and Bermuda. Community. Finally, we are proud of our involvement in our communities. I encourage you to learn about the organizations we support, including Transportation Alternatives.

Capital One Ventures starts with a deep understanding of Capital One's strategic priorities, markets and technologies. We seek out companies across industries and investment stages. We align with entrepreneurs on the strategic rationale for our investment. We then help our portfolio companies with guidance on product and business development, and engagement with Capital One. CAPITAL ONE Founded on the belief that the banking industry would be revolutionized by information and technology, Capital One is on a mission to help our customers succeed by bringing ingenuity, simplicity and humanity to banking. Still founder-led, Capital One is a Fortune 100 company offering consumer, small business and commercial financial services. Capital One is Changing Banking For Good: All-in on the Cloud Powered by machine learning & AI Committed to customers' succes OUR TEAM Based in San Francisco, New York and at Capital One's headquarters outside of Washington, DC, Capital One Ventures is a team of investors and operators with deep tech, data and financial services experience.

Capital Eleven is an investment firm specializing in private equity, early stage venture capital, and real estate development. It was founded in 2009 by Travis Hawkes and David Gardner who first met while they were both business students at Boise State University. In 2014, they co-founded Capital Auto Loan, now one of the largest auto lenders in Idaho and Utah. Every investment is focused on creating a win for investors, partners, and customers. Capital Eleven is focused on early stage software companies, commercial real estate development, and high growth private equity opportunities. We invest in people with passion, projects with vision, and partner with investors and entrepreneurs that share the same values of excellence, grit, and doing what’s right.