JumpStartUp gives up $75 mn fund plan

JumpStartUp, an early-stage technology venture capital fund, has shelved plans to raise its proposed $75 million fund. Sanjay Anandram, partner, JumpStartUp, confirmed this move. The VC had raised $45 million in 2000 and this has been fully committed.

According sources, the company found it difficult to convince investors to pump in money in a start-up fund. "There is immense interest in growth-level companies; but it is difficult to persuade investors to look at early-stage funds. This is the reason why JumpStartUp had to drop plans for a second fund," an analyst added.

International institutional investors like GE Capital, PPM Ventures, private equity arm of Prudential Plc, UK, Silicon Valley Bank and FMO-Netherlands were some of the investors in the first venture of the company.

JumpStartUp hogged limelight backing some promising companies like NetDevices, Meru Networks and July Systems.

The VC also successfully exited CustomerAsset and NetKraft to ICICIOneSource and Adea Solutions respectively.

Kiran Nadkarni, arguably father of the Indian venture capital industry, is one of the partners in this firm besides Sanjay and Ganapathy Subramanian.

"We have quite a few companies in our portfolio which will keep us active for at least the next two years. Eventually as all VCs, we will exit our investments at an opportune time," added Anandram.