ah! Ventures has announced its profitable exit from Mumbai-based Entropy Innovations within a year of its investment, for an undisclosed amount.
The investment was done along with Mark Mobius, Executive Chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets and AdvantEdge Incubator in June 2015. The company has bought back the stakes from all the investors.
This is ah! Ventures’ second exit in the last two years after edtech startup Harness Handitouch, from which it exited within two years of its investment.
Commenting on the exit, Harshad Lahoti, Founder & CEO of ah! Ventures, said, “In times when exits are hard to come by, the investors have got a good return and the founders got to consolidate their shareholding. It is a win-win for all stakeholders.”
Lahoti further added, “Our belief in the product, the service and the entire effort of revamping bike care & maintenance, made us invest in the enterprise last year. The clarity with which the team understood the niche market, instilled our trust in the startup and now this exit clearly makes us appreciate that decision of ours.”
Entropy Innovations was founded in early 2013 as an engineering innovations company with an aim to disrupt the two-wheeler service industry. The core founding team includes Niraj Taksande, Raghvendra Bhushan Karn, Jigar Vora, and Shyam Babu.
The team – who are alumni from IIT & IIM – has designed and manufactured automatic motorcycle wash machine – ‘Express Bike Wash’ that addresses a multitude of problems faced by an individual owner as well as a service station.
To date, the founders have claimed to wash the dirtiest of the bikes in 2-5 minutes with the Express Bike Wash or ‘EBW.’ Also, the product was praised by two-wheeler industry giants such as Honda, Hero and Royal Enfield.
As stated by Niraj, “Starting from one EBW store in 2015 and one machine serving an OEM service station, we have sold over 50 machines till now across India, South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. With healthy cash flows now, we (founders) have consolidated our holding in the company and the investors have valued our decision. Going ahead, we are open for synergetic partners for our growth stage.”
The company’s innovation team has also seen a rapid growth in its headcount from an 8-member team last year to a 40-member team this year. Entropy is now planning to capture the unorganised market and is introducing a ‘care segment’ that aims to offer its customers fast, easy to access, affordable service.
Other startups which recently received investments from ah! Ventures included bitcoin startup Unocoin, wedding service marketplace ShaadiSaga, jewellery marketplace Joolz, entry-level talent acquisition startup, Kickstart Jobs, and others.
