Venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator, 500 Startups is in process of raising about $10-20 Mn (about INR 60-120 Cr) for its India focussed startup fund StartupWallah which is supposed to be launched this year.
In 2012, Dave McClure, founding partner at 500 Startups, had announced StartupWallah and was planning to raise $5 Mn (INR 30 Cr) for this India-focused fund, along the same time 500 Luchadores (regional fund focusing on Latin America) and 500 Durians (regional fund focusing on Southeast Asia) were launched. The other two regional funds raised money, however, 5oo Startups never announced the fund closure of StartupWallah.
Interestingly, through StartupWallah it had invested in a location-based price search engine for mobile phones, Pricebaba in November 2013.
“We started the process two years ago but had to put it on hold because the market was not mature back then,” Aerin Lim, director of investor relations, 500 Startups told ET.
500 Startups plans to invest $50,000-100,000 (INR 30-60 lakh) per startup for an equity stake of 7%. The director of investor relations at 500 Startups, Lim, has met prospective investors in India to raise the funds and build a strong foothold in the Indian startup ecosystem.
Founded in 2010 by PayPal & Google alums Silicon-based startup accelerator has accelerated over a 1,000 startups across 50 countries with a series of microfunds being launched. The micro VC fund 500 Kimchi was launched just last month to invest in South Korean startups.
500 Startups have been active accelerator in India since 2011. It has invested in over 30 startups in India including ZipDial, Pricebaba, Instamojo, Targetingmantra, Kartrocket, SocialCops. Startups including Tourlandish, InterviewMaster, Sourceasy, TargetingMantra have been in 500 startups accelerator batch to be mentored.
Besides this, 500 Startups is currently raising about $10 Mn for its Thailand fund called 500 TukTuks.
