India's Scale Ventures buys Guerrilla Ventures portfolio

Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed; Rahul Narvekar, a co-founder of Scale, told VC Circle that the deal was a combination of cash and equity. Guerrilla founder Ritesh Malik will join the board at Scale.

Guerrilla has invested in 28 start-ups to date, and has exited seven. On average it invests about INR4 million ($60,000) in each company. Its portfolio companies include Innov8, a co-working space provider also founded by Malik, and Asimov Robotics.

Scale is currently raising its first fund, with a target of INR 1 billion; so far it has raised INR700 million, mostly from individual investors. The firm plans to invest in 30 early-stage start-ups, including the Guerrilla portfolio, by the end of the year, with INR3-35 million committed to each company. It will also launch an accelerator program focused on start-ups in India's tier 2, 3 and 4 cities.

Scale was launched in January by Narvekar, founder and former CEO of online ethnic marketplace IndianRoots, and Nilesh Rathi, who has held various positions in the Rathi Group conglomerate and at one time served on the board of IndianRoots. Rathi is also a member of the Seed Fund Committee of the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, India's largest science business incubator.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• South Asia
• Technology
• Secondaries
• Venture
• India
• seed