India-based Avataar Capital’s launch of a new US$300M fund is the other major development of the day
Strategic Ventures Fund II launches US$50M growth accelerator fund [press release]
Delhi-based Strategic Ventures Fund (SVF) II has launched a US$50 million growth accelerator early-stage fund to engage with entrepreneurs and startups in the Indo-ASEAN area.
SVFII is the brainchild of four seasoned investors who have been entrepreneurs themselves and have a long history of mutual association.
Atim Kabra, Director of Strategic Ventures Fund II said, “The fund targets a portfolio of hundred companies over the next 48 months. The focus would be a risk-assessed, disciplined, early-stage investing in curated high traction startups. Investment targets would be technology-driven, technology-enabled, technology-differentiated companies across industries which can scale up significantly with the assistance of accelerants SVF II intends to provide.”
Avataar Capital launches US$300M fund in India [press release]
India-based Avataar Capital Management has announced the launch of a new fund Avataar Venture Partners I.
The fund will focus on making US$10-30 million in growth-stage B2B and SaaS companies that have at least US$15 million of annual recurring revenues and are looking to scale globally.
Avataar will work with companies and their leadership teams to deliver on critical initiatives that will help scale their businesses. Avataar will be led by Mohan Kumar, former Partner at Norwest Venture Partners India, and Nishant Rao, former COO of Freshworks.
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At the closing of the fund, Avataar has acquired stakes in six B2B SaaS companies Appnomic, Capillary, CRMNext, ElasticRun, Manthan and Zenoti from Norwest Venture Partners.
Fintech startup Flowcast raises US$3M in Series A funding [press release]
Flowcast, a fintech startup that specialises in smart credit decisioning, has closed US$3 million of Series A funding, co-led by ING Ventures and Bitrock Capital, with additional funding from existing investors including Katalyst Ventures and Alpana Ventures.
The proceeds of this round will be used to fund the acceleration of Flowcast’s go-to-market strategy, global market expansion, and the continuing product development and improvement.
Flowcast is an AI platform to power smarter credit decisions for financial institutions and corporates. Flowcast’s API-based Machine Learning platform harnesses alternative data to unlock credit at scale. This empowers lenders and corporations to extend and monitor credit that is historically unavailable with conventional lending and credit scoring methods.
Axinan expands into the Philippines, to launch mobile phone insurance solutions [press release]
Singapore-based insurtech firm Axinan announced today its entry into the Philippines, starting with its strategic partnership with leading non-life insurer Mercantile Insurance.
Underwritten by Mercantile, the insurance solutions introduced will be in the area of mobile phone protection through Axinan’s consumer brand igloo. Axinan will offer its proprietary tech capabilities while Mercantile’s niche in non-life insurance gives both parties a competitive edge through this collaboration.
According to the International Data Corporation’s report in 2018, there has been a shift in the Philippines smartphone market, where Filipinos are moving towards mobile phones with higher specifications and better features. In the same study, it was revealed that this trend is coupled with higher average selling prices of mobile phones, with a 13 per cent year-on-year increase in 2017.
The post Today’s top tech news, Sep 24: Strategic Ventures launches US$50M Indo-ASEAN fund; Axinan enters Philippines appeared first on e27.