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Zone Startups, a venture fund and accelerator housed at the BSE, has raised about $28 Mn (INR 190 Cr.) registered with SEBI. With the raised fund, the firm is looking to invest in over 50-60 startups.
Confirming the development, Ajay Ramasubramaniam, director of Zone Startups, told us that the fund will invest the amount over a 2-3 year time horizon.
Zone Startups is a global network for founders, investors and corporate innovators to achieve local, and international growth. It offers state of the art work space, mentorship – functional, business experts & industry panel, market development & business development support, networking & branding opportunities, funding opportunity, access to North American market and peer-to-peer mentoring.
Ajay is focused on finding young entrepreneurs with smart business ideas. However, his preferences will only be towards business-to-business (B2B) companies. “Almost 60% of the companies we invest in are business-focused companies. They are easiest to scale up and even a few customers can pay heavily,” said Ajay.
The average ticket size of each investment will be $45K – $75K (INR 30-50 lakh). “We may invest in a few follow-on investments with $150K – $225K (INR 1 Cr. to INR 1.5 Cr.),” Ajay added. Some of these will be co-investments with other funds. Zone Startups prefers its companies to be revenue-focused and not in the race for gross merchandise volume.
As of now, Zone Startups have invested in about 63 startups out of which only 10 have failed.
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