Visible Ventures

Connect Ventures is an investment partnership between leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and global venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA). With access to CAA’s unmatched resources, relationships, and expertise spanning the global media, entertainment, and sports landscape, combined with the deep investing and company building expertise of NEA’s world-class technology practice, Connect Ventures identifies and accelerates the growth of early-stage consumer-focused businesses.

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.

Early-stage venture firm led by experienced investors with a passion for consumer businesses. Your First Institutional Investor: We invest in exciting consumer businesses (& their enablers) from Seed to Series A. Lead with Conviction: We lead rounds; we don’t borrow conviction from others. Sector Focus: Digital Consumer businesses and their Enablers Ticket Size: 'First cheque' sizes of INR 10-150 million Subsequent Rounds: We have reserved significant capital for follow on investment in our portfolio companies Partner of Choice: We’ve been helping founders build businesses through good times and bad for two decades The Story behind the People We have 30+ years of cumulative experience managing third-party capital Partners in several consumer journeys at multiple stages across categories. We have professionally and personally invested across 20+ consumer businesses from seed stage to growth. We believe in marrying rigor with agility and are deeply engaged in value creation with our founders. We are looking to play the long game with people willing to play the long game. PRATH is a labor of love for us to translate our passion for consumer investing into an institution, that we hope, will far outlive and outshine us.

AC Ventures uses operational experience, industry knowledge, local network, and resources to empower entrepreneurs with more than just capital. We're founders investing in founders. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we're committed to helping extraordinary founders succeed. We provide a range of experience and insight to move your venture from idea to implementation. We use everything at our disposal to maximize your potential in the ever-evolving ecosystem, focusing on you, not just capital or resources. Areas of Interest As entrepreneurs ourselves, we're committed to helping extraordinary founders succeed. We provide a range of experience and insight to move your venture from idea to implementation. We use everything at our disposal to maximize your potential in the ever-evolving ecosystem, focusing on you, not just capital or resources. Digital Enablers: Novel tech tools that help traditional companies join the digital economy. eCommerce: Startups that are buying or selling goods and services online or empowering communities to do so. Fintech: Startups that challenge the status quo, particularly those that empower underbanked communities in Indonesia. Logistics: Startups optimizing the mass movement of goods and people across the country. SME Tech: Startups that help Indonesia's 62+ million MSMEs transition and thrive online in the digital era. Defining Impact for Our Investments We strive to be the most trusted and valuable partner in helping founders build their businesses in Indonesia and beyond. AC Ventures was formed through the merger of two leading venture capital funds in Indonesia – Agaeti Venture Capital and Convergence Ventures. We are a tech-focused investment firm backing early stage high-growth businesses. Our mission is to invest in the best Indonesian startups and help them grow into world-class companies. In 15 years of investing, we’ve done just that – backed founders who had the dream of reshaping markets with disruptive new business models that change industries. We believe that Indonesia is the epicenter of the region’s thriving and diverse startup ecosystem. By combining our experience, network, and resources, we bring deep expertise in consumer, B2B, digital media, fintech, and SME industries to our portfolio.

Channel 4 Ventures (“C4V”) is a highly innovative corporate venture activity for Channel 4, which invests Channel 4’s airtime in return for minority stakes in early-stage companies (“media-for-equity”). Channel 4 Ventures provides an exciting opportunity for high-growth startups to access mass market audiences via premium marketing inventory (i.e. the spots between Bake-Off, Made in Chelsea, and Gogglebox) without dipping into cash reserves earmarked for competing development priorities. We are the leading media-for-equity fund in the UK and one of the few consumer-focused venture funds in the market with a truly unique proposition, clear value-add, and ambitious team. Since inception in 2015, C4V has completed 50+ investments in consumer growth companies, including Pinterest, Airtasker, Eve Sleep, Swyft, what3words, Strike, Cannaray, Crowdcube, Raylo, and Drover. C4V has invested alongside many prominent VC investors across the consumer ecosystem, such as Accel, Felix, Octopus, Balderton, Draper, Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity Investments, Intel, Whole Foods & BP Ventures. Some of our successful exits via IPO include Eve Sleep, Pinterest, and Readly.

Since 1995, eBay has been helping entrepreneurs create economic opportunity on our global marketplace platform. Now, eBay Ventures is bringing this expertise to young and innovative founders, partnering with them to help their models succeed. Our investment and strategic expertise, paired with our global ecommerce knowledge and reach, uniquely position us to support your growth and innovation. We know how to build an enduring business – and we’d love to help your startup succeed, too. Funding & partnership for growth Beyond offering funding, we also want to be your partner for growth. With our experience operating leading marketplaces, we can help you scale your ecommerce business. A mutual fit for innovation We’re a multi-stage investment firm with a global scope. We tend to focus on early-stage investments, but we’re also open to later-stage investments where there’s a great fit.