Spring time at ah! Ventures
Early-stage investment platform ah! Ventures is busy scrutinising around 300-400 startup proposals every month as well as getting more investors into its fold.
Hello Reader,
It’s a new day, a new week, and a new month.
We enter Monday on some significant highs as both BSE Sensex and Nifty50 extended their gains on Friday, for a third consecutive day. Even US and European shares closed last week on highs, and the Indian rupee saw its biggest single-day gain in almost a year.
Meanwhile, India has won four medals—2 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze— at the Commonwealth Games 2022 currently underway in Birmingham.
Also, today marks the start of two epic stories ever told—Frank Herbert’s Dune saga (1965) and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire epic (1996)—almost 30 years apart.
Spring time at ah! Ventures
The month of July signalled the beginning of India's funding winter, as VC firms close the tap on capital inflow with central banks around the world raising interest rates. But for Mumbai-headquartered ah! Ventures, it's business as usual.
In June 2022, the early-stage investor announced the launch of its maiden angel fund with a corpus of Rs 100 crore and a greenshoe option of Rs 50 crore to invest in early-stage and Pre-Series A startups.
Investment journey:
- Amit Kumar, Partner, ah! Ventures, says 93 startups have been successful out of the 104 the VC firm has invested in.
- The VC firm has been a part of about 140 deals worth Rs 286 crore since 2012-13.
- The investment company has had 14 exits, while 28 of its portfolio startups have raised follow-on funding.
Genome testing for wellness
Kerala-based entrepreneur and biohacker Sajeev Nair identified the potential of DNA and founded Bengaluru-based healthtech startup Wellness Solutions, along with co-founder Adityanarayan.
The startup's ‘Personalised Epigenetic Lifestyle Modifications’ (EPLIMO) mobile app aims to find long-term solutions for healthy living by decoding users' DNA and assessing metrics across 250 different health conditions.
Key metrics:
- The app has a user base of 5,000+ active users.
- Vieroots has more than 200 lifestyle coaches and 500+ wellness consultants.
- A majority of voters hail from Tier 1 cities, while 20% come from the Northeast.
Next big thing in Web3
There's no denying it—the promise of Web3 is attracting many startups to find innovative solutions in the sector, which saw nearly $14.6 billion in investments in the first quarter of 2022.
According to a 2021 Blockdata report, as of September 2021, 81 of the top 100 public companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung, Alphabet, etc., use blockchain technology.
Web3 rush:
- reported a 395% increase in job postings with Web3-related terms in 2021.
- In 2021, venture capital firms invested over $30 billion in crypto startups.
- Data compiled by NASSCOM and WazirX found that nearly 50,000 Indians were employed in crypto tech firms in 2021.
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