The young VC brigade

Over the past few years, younger venture capital (VC) firms, with smaller teams and a nimble investment approach, have started backing startups, especially those raising pre-Series A capital.

What sets these investors apart from the conventional VCs?

Younger VCs believe that there is so much action in the Indian startup ecosystem that they can carve out a niche for themselves. “We are very comfortable with the risky model of these new-age businesses and patient enough to see them mature. This is what makes us different,” Abhishek Agarwal, founder of Rockstud Capital tells YourStory.

Madhur Singhal, Managing Partner and Head, Financial Investors Group, Praxis Global Alliance believes that this breed of young VC firms is playing an important role in the growing Indian startup ecosystem.

“These kinds of investors are actually broad basing the entire structure as there is a variety of businesses which require different types of capital,” says Madhur. Read more.

The Interview

How can developers build unique SaaS products that their customers will love? In this episode of Intuit India’s ‘Knowledge Series’, Natarajan Swaminathan, Senior Design Manager, Intuit India, and Muthuraj Thangavel, Senior Product Manager, Intuit India, talk about the company’s mantra for designing impactful SaaS products.

The two deep-dive into factors like empathising with remote customers, defining the right problems, rapid testing and how they can be instrumental in building the right SaaS solutions.

Editor’s Pick: MSMEs in times of Omicron

India’s Omicron tally, as of January 17, stands at 8,209 cases whereas the overall new cases stood at over 2.71 lakh.

India’s micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have shown resilience during the first two waves, but will it survive the third wave? SMBStory takes a deep dive into understanding the factors that helped the sector cope with COVID-19-led disruptions and the road ahead. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

How RupeeRedee helps underserved borrowers get small loans

Most people depend on unorganised, predatory lenders because they’re not able to qualify for a bank loan on account of not having a credit portfolio or “creditworthiness”. Students, job seekers, self-employed individuals, part-time workers, or people who don’t have bank accounts are most likely to be rejected for a bank loan because they don’t have a credit profile with CIBIL yet.

That didn’t sit well with Artem Andreev, country head of RupeeRedee, who believes that access to credit should be democratic. RupeeRedee solves that problem. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Helping students without laptops learn to code

Coding is slowly becoming a must-have skill in this digital era. In fact, the National Education Policy 2020 further boosted the introduction of coding among kids amidst COVID-19 led lockdowns. However, one of the primary problems these kids faced was the availability of laptops.

Realising this problem, IIT-BHU (Varanasi) graduates — Amit Shekhar, Janishar Ali, and Mridul Ranjan Sahu — started vernacular-based online coding platform CuriousJr in September 2020, which enables students without laptops to learn coding on their mobiles. Read more.

News & Updates

DeHaat, the technology-based platform offering end-to-end agricultural services to farmers in India, announced the acquisition of Maharashtra-based B2B agri-input marketplace startup, Helicrofter.

Building on their portfolio of D2C brands across categories, G.O.A.T Brand Labs has now acquired 90 percent stake in The Label Life, a women’s fashion and lifestyle brand styled by Sussanne Khan, Malaika Arora and Bipasha Basu.

The India arm of global early-stage venture capital firm, Antler, has announced 19 student entrepreneurs as part of its inaugural Antler India Fellowship cohort.