Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and often come from high technology industries such as information technology (IT) or biotechnology.
Times Internet is an Indian multinational technology company, headquartered in Gurgaon, India which owns, operates and invests in various internet-led products, services and technology. It is the digital arm of The Times Group, the largest media conglomerate in India. Times Internet currently owns and operates 39+ digital products across news, sports, music, video, trivia, spirituality and a suite of transaction-led market-places across real estate, personal finance, education, jobs, table reservation, agri-business, etc.
Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California which specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. As of 2022, the firm had approximately US$85 billion in assets under management.
Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional operating funds in London, India and China.
Greycroft LP is an American venture capital firm. It manages over $2 billion in capital with investments in companies such as Bird, Bumble, HuffPost, Goop, Scopely, The RealReal, and Venmo. Greycroft was founded in 2006 by Alan Patricof, Dana Settle, and Ian Sigalow. The firm is headquartered in New York City, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Flipkart Private Limited is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bangalore, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, home essentials, groceries, and lifestyle products.
Freecharge is an Indian financial services company based in Gurgaon. It allows users to pay bills such as electricity, gas and telephone, as well as recharge mobile, broadband, DTH and metro cards.
Paytm is an Indian multinational financial technology company, that specializes in digital payments and financial services, based in Noida, India. Paytm was founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma under One97 Communications. The company offers mobile payment services to consumers and enables merchants to receive payments through QR code payment, Soundbox, Android-based-payment terminal, and online payment gateway. In partnership with financial institutions, Paytm also offers financial services such as microcredit and buy now, pay later to its consumers and merchants.
Vedantu is an Indian multinational online tutoring platform launched in 2014 based in Bengaluru, India. It primarily provides services to students in grades 4 to 12.
Vserv is a platform for mobile marketing and commerce. The platform has a mobile internet user base in India and Southeast Asia with insights on users in these markets. Founded in 2010, Vserv has over 500 million user profiles and is backed by Maverick Capital, IDG Ventures India and Epiphany Ventures.
M12, formerly Microsoft Ventures, is a corporate venture capital subsidiary of Microsoft. Founded in March 2016, its mission is to be an active, strategic partner during a startup's growth, typically investing between Series A and D. The fund is managed by Michelle Gonzalez, formerly of Google.
HealthifyMe is an Indian digital health and wellness company, which provides an app with services such as calorie tracking and advice on nutrition and fitness. It is available on the Android and iOS platforms, and can be used with wearable technology such as activity trackers.
Whatfix is an Indian SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) company, headquartered in San Jose, California, United States and Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. It offers GenAI-driven product suite that supports the application lifecycle, from ideation to training and deployment. The suite includes the Digital Adoption Platform(DAP), which provides in-app guidance for web, desktop, and mobile applications; Product Analytics, a no-code tool for tracking user behavior and adoption; and Mirror, which enables simulated application environments for hands-on training. Whatfix has been included in several analyst reports, such as the 2024 Everest Group Digital Adoption Platform PEAK Matrix®, where it was listed as a Leader and Star Performer, and the 2024 IDC MarketScape: Worldwide DAP Vendor Assessment. Additionally, it was named a Customers’ Choice in the 2024 Gartner® Voice of the Customer Report and was recognized in Forrester’s 2022 New Wave™: Digital Adoption Platforms report.
Nium is a Singapore-headquartered cross-border payments company. Initially founded by Prajit Nanu and Michael Bermingham, and launched as a consumer-remittance platform Instarem in 2014. In 2016, the company introduced its B2B payments platform and rebranded as Nium in 2019, subsequently elevating Pratik Gandhi to co-founder in 2021. However, Gandhi left Nium in October 2023, around the time Nium's Chief Product Officer also left the company and Nium announced a layoff of over 10% of its global staff.
Furlenco is an Indian online furniture rental platform that was incorporated in 2012.
Delhivery is an Indian logistics and supply chain company, based in Gurgaon. It was founded in 2011 by Sahil Barua, Mohit Tandon, Bhavesh Manglani, Suraj Saharan, and Kapil Bharati. The company has over 85 fulfillment centres, 29 automated sort centres, 160 hubs, 7,500+ partner centres, and 3,500+ direct delivery centres, as of 2021. About two-thirds of its revenue comes from providing third-party logistics and delivery services to e-commerce companies.
Swiggy is an Indian online food ordering and delivery company. Founded in 2014, Swiggy is headquartered in Bangalore and operates in more than 580 Indian cities, as of July 2023. Besides food delivery, the platform also provides quick commerce services under the name Swiggy Instamart, and same-day package deliveries with Swiggy Genie.
Lenskart is an Indian multinational eyewear company, based in Gurugram. As a vertically integrated company, it designs, manufactures, distributes, and retails prescription and regular eyewear. It sells its products through website, mobile app and 2,000+ physical stores
Arjun Sethi is an American internet entrepreneur, investor and executive. He is co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Tribe Capital. Previously, he was a partner at Social Capital and an executive at Yahoo!, where he launched Yahoo! Livetext. Prior, he was co-founder and CEO of MessageMe and was the CEO of Lolapps, the developer behind Ravenwood Fair. In December 2023, he became Tribe Capital's chairman and CIO.
