Deal focus: Blume targets e-commerce’s back-end

Robotics developer GreyOrange is committed to overhauling this familiar system. Its signature product, the Butler system, consists of a fleet of autonomous robots that use swarm intelligence and machine learning to fulfill orders quickly and reliably. The company's clients include e-commerce giants such as Flipkart and Amazon, as well as logistics firm Delhivery.

For Blume Ventures, an early backer of GreyOrange, the company is living up to the potential the VC firm sensed when it first committed $500,000 in seed funding in 2012. "We were very excited, because very seldom do we come across really cutting edge intellectual property that is world class compared to anything else out there," says Karthik Reddy, Blume's co-founder and managing partner.

The GP is feeling confident enough to re-up in the company; it recently joined Tiger Global Management in a $30 million Series B round for GreyOrange. It is the second investment by Tiger and the third by Blume; both firms participated in the company's $8.9 million Series A round last year.

For Blume, which raised INR1 billion ($22 million) for its first fund and it is targeting INR3.6 billion for a follow-up vehicle, bringing in a larger partner like Tiger is a necessary part of the investment plan - as is carefully establishing the best investment sectors rather than acting impulsively for whatever is currently fashionable.

"With a fund of our size, you have to approach the market with a thesis orientation, because if you're reacting to what the market thinks is hot, it's already too late," says Reddy. "All our big brothers, the Sequoias and Accels of the world, already have wind of good ideas by then, and they're able to throw a lot more capital."

GreyOrange has served as a test bed of sorts for some of Blume's longer term plans. One way the GP hopes to differentiate itself from its larger-pocketed colleagues is by offering its portfolio companies necessary services at an attractive price. For example, Blume helped GreyOrange with the legal and tax paperwork when the company was setting up operations in Singapore.

The GP has no plans to exit the investment - indeed, it wants to stick with GreyOrange through multiple rounds as the company attempts to fulfill its potential as an indispensible part of the Asian e-commerce backend.

"The reason we made an extra effort and played alongside Tiger, even in a very large round, is because we think it's one of those companies that can become a billion dollar plus company," says Reddy. "We think that it has at least a 10x growth potential from where it is today."

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• Topics
• Technology
• Expansion
• South Asia
• Venture
• Growth capital
• Venture
• India
• Technology
• Blume Ventures
• Tiger Global Management