India’s Blume closes Fund III at $102m

The fund, which has exceeded its target of $80 million, achieved a first close of $40 million in 2018. At the time, Blume was aiming for a final close by the end of that year. The fund will back 25-30 companies, writing checks of $500,000 to $1.25 million with additional capital reserved for follow-on rounds, according to a statement.

Founded in 2011, Blume has active investments in 76 companies. It claims to have achieved 22 exits achieved so far. Initially a seed or angel investor for enterprise start-ups targeting customers in Western markets, Blume has since co-invested in consumer-centric businesses in India.

The firm has already made 10 commitments from the new fund. Recipients include Classplus, an app that helps coaching centres manage administrative issues; Stage3, a womenswear rental portal; Ethereal, a 3D printing start-up; Tapchief, a freelance recruitment portal; Jai Kisan, an agri-equipment financier; and Euler Motors, an electric three-wheeler manufacturer serving intra-city logistics providers.

“Thanks to a rise in the quality and availability of talent in leading edge technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, we’ve expanded our investment team resources to cover enterprise software and software-as-a-service as well as space and drones, robotics, core sciences and other deep tech areas,” said Sanjay Nath, Blume's co-founder and managing director.

Over the last 18 months, Blume has opened offices in Bengaluru and Delhi alongside the main office in Mumbai. It has also promoted CFO Ashish Fafadia as a partner. So far, only one Blume portfolio company has gone public – E2E Networks, a hosting and cloud computing start-up, listed on NSE Emerge, an exchange for small and medium-sized enterprises, in 2018.

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