Investing in India’s potential to be a major global tech hub
Sajan Pillai, Managing Partner, Season Two Ventures, strongly believes that India has the potential to be a major tech hub in the world, and his investment playbook exhorts the same.
California-based Season Two Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, aims to bring a catalyst to the B2B AI/SaaS-based tech space in India.
Sajan Pillai, Managing Partner, Season Two Ventures, strongly believes that India has the potential to be a major tech hub in the world, and his investment playbook exhorts the same.
Last year, the B2B-focused $100 million-fund backed digital payments startup Uvik Technologies, air quality intelligence startup Ambee, data privacy company Ozone.ai, and two healthcare businesses — Svast and Hilabs. In 2021, it invested in onco-genomics Indian startup 4baseCare.
The fund is now in advanced stages of discussion to invest in 12 startups over the year from the first $100 million-fund, following which the second round of funding of about $350-$400 million would be initiated.
In a conversation with YourStory, Sajan says, “We are keenly looking at Indian startups that are competitively priced, are at an early stage in their growth journey, show technological and business prowess, have exceptional founders, with a promise to scale in valuation and create an exit path for both the founders and investors.”
He adds the surge in unicorns and funding in the Indian ecosystem through and post-COVID is a testament to startups’ growth trend in India.
Read all about how the Indian startup ecosystem is battling the second wave of COVID-19 here.
Here are some useful tools to help you find the nearest vaccine centres in real-time.
You can also share a tribute to COVID-19 warriors, saviours, and survivors here.
The Interview
During a recent conversation, Arnab Mitra, CEO, DigiBoxx, spoke about the country's cloud storage market, and how it is becoming more important to have a domestic cloud storage provider.
Arnab also highlighted how DigiBoxx is helping its customers with leveraging the cloud as a solution in a pocket-friendly way.
Editor’s Pick: Meet 15-year-old entrepreneur-baker Elisha Parikh
Elisha Parikh started baking at the age of seven. Now, at 15, she is known as elithebaker and has a thriving Instagram page, a website of her own, orders pouring in, and celebrity mentions on social media.
The young girl is also an entrepreneur twice over. Apart from her Eli the Baker persona, she has also teamed up with a classmate at Dhirubhai Ambani International School to launch Cakeify, a startup that sells DIY cake kits. Read more.
Startup Spotlight
Revolutionising seed classification with vision-based intelligence
According to a Bain & Co report, close to 55 percent of Indians still depend on agriculture for their livelihood. It stated that the sector is at the cusp of technology disruption, among other disruptions.
Founded in May 2020, Bengaluru-based agritech startup Agdhi Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is one such startup that leverages ML and computer vision for seed classification, thereby enabling the farming community to procure quality seeds for better yield. Read more.
Co-founders of Agdhi
News & Updates
- Twitter on Saturday informed the Delhi High Court that it was in the 'final stages' of appointing a resident grievance officer. This is after Twitter's interim resident grievance officer resigned from his post on June 27.
- IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad lauded Google, Facebook and Instagram for publishing their first compliance report on voluntary removal of offensive posts as per new IT rules, terming it a big step towards transparency.
- Bharat Biotech's Covaxin has demonstrated 77.8 percent effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 and 65.2 percent protection against the new Delta variant. The efficacy analysis demonstrates Covaxin to be 93.4 percent effective against severe symptomatic COVID-19 cases.
- Indian-born Sirisha Bandla will be the first person from Andhra Pradesh to fly to space. She is among the six-member crew of VSS Unity — Virgin Galactic’s suborbital rocket-powered spaceplane — that includes the company’s founder Richard Branson (70).
Before you go, stay inspired with…
Sajan Pillai, CEO and Managing Partner, Season Two Ventures
“As a founder, it is important to build resilience into your business model and to avoid succumbing to the challenges that exist, and instead pursuing opportunities for exploration and expansion via a differentiated strategy.”
— Sajan Pillai, Managing Partner, Season Two Ventures
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