Venture Catalysts Partially Exits Insurance Samadhan With 3.65X Returns

Early-stage investment firm Venture Catalysts (VCats) on Thursday (December 7) announced a partial exit from insurtech startup Insurance Samadhan with 3.65X returns on its initial investment. 

As per the investor, other unnamed angel investors, including Mandar Joshi, also ‘successfully’ exited the company with 3X returns on their investment.

“… The exit opportunity goes a long way in establishing confidence within the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and encourages investors to bolster promising startups further,” said Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, cofounder and managing director of Venture Catalysts.

Commenting on this, Insurance Samadhan cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) Deepak Bhuvneshwar Uniyal said, “… We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Venture Catalysts for their early-stage trust in us… There’s no greater satisfaction for a founder than offering a commendable exit to their investors. We remain committed to seeking your valuable guidance and support in our journey ahead.”

VCats first invested in the startup as part of a seed funding round in 2020, and followed it by participating in the INR 5.5 Cr pre-Series A round later in 2021. The investment firm claims to have attained a successful partial exit from the insurtech player within a span of less than three years.

Founded in 2018 by Sanjay Aggarwal and Uniyal, Insurance Samadhan is an insurtech platform that caters to consumers’ insurance-related queries such as lapsed policy, policy rejection, fraud or claim rejection, short-settlement and mis-selling of policies. 

This comes nearly a year after IIFL Fintech Fund acquired a 16% stake in Insurance Samadhan for an undisclosed amount. This was part of the startup’s $2 Mn Series A round, led by the investment services company’s arm. 

The startup claims to have grown its revenue by 100% year-on-year.

Founded in 2016 by Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain and Gaurav Jain, Venture Catalysts claims to have invested in more than 300 startups since its inception with cumulative valuation of its portfolio hovering around the $10 Bn mark. The integrated incubator typically invests in early-stage startups with a ticket size of $250K to $2 Mn.

This comes amid a spree of exits by VCats from its portfolio companies. In September, the investor partially exited B2B skilling startup Cusmat with 4.2X returns. Post that, it also offloaded its entire stake in automotive marketplace Koovers with 2.1X returns. 

The trend of partially exiting stakes has also been a recurring theme across the Indian startup ecosystem this year. In September, VC First Cheque partially exited D2C jewellery startup GIVA at a 75X return on the initial investment. Inflection Point Ventures also fully exited its stake in automobile spare parts platform Koovers with an internal rate of return (IRR) of 47%. 

Artha Venture Fund and Rockstud Capital also recently exited Uber-backed fleet management startup Everest Fleet with 19X and 18.8X returns, respectively.