An Insight into one of the Most Vital Venture Capitals: Chiratae

Nothing is more predictable like the startup ecosystem. The one residing at the top of the chart may fall into the loopholes and become less popular on any given day. The same is the story about the Indian startups who are struggling at the present moment. These ventures can become the next big thing in the ecosystem if they execute their plans very well. Now, as we discuss the stories of many venture capitals, there is one of the most vital venture capitals: Chiratae, that has helped many startups to grow and help out multiple companies to stand on their own feet.

Quick Facts - Chiratae

Insights into Chiratae

The entrepreneurs at Chiratae embrace the unpredictable and exploratory terrains of the startup ecosystem. The name has been derived from the animal Cheetah as most of the team members are wildlife enthusiasts. The company has helped over 80 ventures and 2 IPOs. About $700 million advisories have been done by Chiratae and the team has over 3 offices across the country.

The company was founded by Sudhir Sethi. Post-1998, Sudhir and the team have advised on investments into 100+ companies across Deep Tech, Digital Consumer, Enterprise  Software, Fintech, and Healthcare sectors. The key investment under Sudhir is Flipkart, FirstCry, Lenskart, Policy Bazaar, Curefit, Manthan, Newgen, Nestaway, and many more to name.

The company is now one of the leading tech venture capital in the country with Mr. Ratan Tata, Mr. Kris Gopalkrishnan, Mr. Burno Raschle, and Mr. Manish Choksi on its global advisory board. In 2001, Mr. Sethi was recognized by Red Herring as one of the leading venture capitalists in the country. Apart from that, he has been named among the Top Ten IT Professionals by Dataquest and Bloomberg UTV as the visionary venture capitalist. He also featured in Subroto Bagchi’s book Zen Garden- Conversations with Pathmakers in 2014.

Adding on to that, the founder of Chiratae ventures has served on EMPEA Venture Capital Council. He has served on the executive committee of India Venture Capital Association, Investment Committee of UTI Ventures, on the Board of Advisors at N.S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurship, IIM Bangalore. Sudhir has completed his BTech in engineering and holds an MBA degree from FMS Delhi, one of the most prestigious institutions in the country.

Chiratae Efforts in Helping DeepTech Startups

Being one of the leaders, risk-taker, and supporters of the startup ecosystem, Chiratae Ventures has been digging down deep and finding the uncharted terrains of the startup ecosystem since 2006. The company was formerly known as IDG Ventures. This VC has invested in over 80+ companies across consumer media and tech, cloud/software, health tech, and fintech sectors, and out of this, 25 % have made it to the global stage.

The fundraising philosophy of the founder includes the entrepreneur being a stellar one, with an ability to become a huge brand and to get on to the global stage. Hence, the company has been helping out the startups successfully and continues to do so. As time passes, the company is growing bigger and better and making it to the headlines.

As the country moves from services to products to innovation to the DeepTech economy, Chiratae Ventures is on a mission to explore the trends in the ecosystem and identify when opportunities could be created. Now, the company is looking to identify and support entrepreneurs who are motivated to bring a positive impact by leveraging Deep technology.

Since few years, the firm has nurtured and helped grow several DeepTech startups, some of them include Axio Biosolutions- MedTech to revolutionize bleeding and wound healing, SigTuple-intelligent screening solutions to aid diagnosis through AI-powered analysis of visual medical data, PlayShifu which is an AR-based interactive learning toy for kids, Zumutor Biologics- a leading immune-oncology company in the space of targeted NK cell therapeutics and Emotix- makers of Miko, an educational company bot are some of the major support provided by the company.

Chiratae on the Path to Enable DeepTech Entrepreneurs

Being one of the major supporters of the DeepTech movement, the company had launched a DeepTech innovators program, which was a two-day immersive event to provide startups in DeepTech space access to an ecosystem of experts and successful entrepreneurs. Talking about the event, Sudhir had cited that as investors, the team needs to reinvent to steer the country into its next growth phase.

According to him, the country is witnessing a boom in innovation in the country and the team wants to be the catalyst for this transformation by supporting the entrepreneurs. Through this program, they have tried to bridge the gap that early startups are facing in terms of accessibility to talent, mentorship, and capital. During this event, the companies were given a chance to partner with key influencers in the ecosystem, including the DeepTech experts and industry evangelist who can provide them with expert advice and opportunities to scale their business.

Now, as the company aims to bridge in the gap between the struggling startups and resources, it is has been taking giant strides in the ecosystem.  In this event, the team brings in a program that fosters a network-led and collaborative approach by providing selected entrepreneurs with many benefits. Some of those benefits included an increased investment process and AMA with experts who have scaled businesses across multiple sectors.

This event also included sessions on entrepreneurship must-knows and how to create great products that can help society. Apart from this, the selected entrepreneurs got a chance to have access to seed-stage capital. Adding on to this, leading corporate brands are sharing their deep-tech knowledge with Chiratae and its partners.

Chiratae Funding

Chiratae as an Inspiration

Well, if we look into how much Chiratae has contributed to the development of the startup ecosystem, we can infer that it is an indispensable part of the startup circuit. Now, a company alone cannot fuel the growth of the circuit on its own, hence, it is very much important for other venture capitals to come up and support the entrepreneurs!