Blume Ventures closes second India fund at $60m

One third of the capital comes from domestic LPs such as IIFL Wealth Management and the government's India Aspiration Fund, according to a Livemint story linked from Blume's home page, with family offices and high net worth individuals also represented.

The rest was contributed by overseas investors, including about $20 million from US investors and $8 million from Japanese LPs. Blume had previously confirmed to The Economic Times that India's Catamaran Ventures and San Francisco's Iconiq Capital also participated.

The fund, Blume Ventures Fund II, launched in 2014 and reached a first close of $30 million last December. Its final close represents a significant increase in size from Blume's first vehicle, which closed in 2012 at INR1 billion ($15 million), with most of its capital coming from domestic sources. With more capital available, the firm plans to write bigger checks, providing $250,000-500,000 in each investment as opposed to the $100,000-250,000 of the first fund.

Blume intends to invest in up to 45 companies through the new fund. Managing Partner Karthik Reddy said that around half of the corpus has already been deployed. Like the first fund, the new vehicle will provide early stage capital to tech-enabled ventures in India, as well as seeking follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies.

Blume typically invests alongside other GPs rather than on its own. Recent deals include warehouse robotics developer GreyOrange, to which Blume committed $30 million in Series B funding alongside Tiger Global Management last year; retail technology developer SnapBizz, which received $7.2 million from Blume, Jungle, Konly Venture and Taurus Value Creation in January; and HealthifyMe, in which Blume, IDG Ventures and Inventus Capital invested $6 million in May.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Venture
• Fundraising
• GPs
• India
• Blume Ventures
• Technology