ProfitBoard Ventures to infuse $100M into startups through consortium
Headquartered in Singapore, ProfitBoard Ventures would assist early- and growth-stage startups in India and Southeast Asia with fundraising through its consortium of investors.
Taxmantra Global (TMG) has announced the launch of its standalone investment banking arm and private investment arm, ProfitBoard Ventures, to back technology-enabled startups in India and Southeast Asia.
Headquartered in Singapore, ProfitBoard Ventures would assist early- and growth-stage startups in fundraising through its consortium of investors, TMG said in a statement.
It has already onboarded a consortium of global investors to inject $100 million into selected startups in the next 18 months, it said.
Inadequate capital is the number one roadblock on the path to scale from idea stage. This is where ProfitBoard Ventures will offer quality capital and much required hand-holding to early- and growth-stage founders. Our medium term three-year goal is to nurture 100-plus startups from India and Southeast Asia, said Alok Patnia, Managing Partner of ProfitBoard Ventures.
TMG has assisted in 100-plus deals in the last three years, translating to about $180 million funding in its existing portfolio of startups, according to the statement.
Founded in 1983, TMG provides advisory, tax and regulatory services to global businesses with delivery centres in Singapore, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Delhi.
It is pertinent to note that by the end of year 2019, India stood as the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, with 26 unicorns. In 2020, COVID-19 became another blackswan event, with a decline in overall investments, especially the April to June 2020 quarter witnessing a -48 percent YoY decline in funding. The decline was even more in early-stage and seed investments — a decrease of more than 50 percent in Q2 of 2020.
The post-COVID-19 scenario, however, looks bright for the startup ecosystem, especially for technology-enabled startups. Investments are expected to reach pre-COVID-19 levels by the end of 2020. Median ticket size for seed and early-stage startups are expected to increase. With the shift towards digitisation and remote working, deep tech, edtech, healthtech, AI/ML startups would definitely have an edge.
Startups would be required to share their Business Plans on ProfitBoard Venture’s platform, which has been specifically curated to focus on startups from India and Southeast Asia. The plans would be reviewed by Profitboard’s global advisory board and the selected startups will get a chance to pitch their businesses to the ProfitBoard Consortium of global investors in a Virtual Hot Pitch.
(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)
Edited by Kanishk Singh