Qapita raises $15 mn in Series A round led by East Ventures, Vulcan Capital

Qapita, provider of equity management SaaS solutions, raised $15 million in a Series A round of funding. This round was co-led by East Ventures (Growth Fund) and Vulcan Capital, with participation from NYCA and other existing investors including MassMutual Ventures, Endiya Partners.

Several existing angel investors across India, Singapore and Indonesia including Alto Partners, Partners of the Northstar Group, K3 Ventures, Mission Holdings, Anjali Bansal (Founder of Avaana Capital) and Sujeet Kumar (CoFounder of Udaan) also invested in this round.

“We are in some of the fastest growing private markets in the world. It is an incredible time to build an operating system and transaction rails for private company ownership in this region. This is about leveraging tech to enhance transparency, access, efficiency and liquidity in private markets,” said, Ravi Ravulaparthi, CEO and co-founder of Qapita.

Qapita had raised $7.25 million in earlier rounds of funding. With the proceeds from this round, Qapita plans to add more products to its platform that will not only provide solutions for private companies and start-ups, but also to investors, shareholders and employees.

Qapita also plans to facilitate liquidity solutions via a digital marketplace enabling transactions for companies between their investors and employee stakeholders. With the latest round, Qapita will amplify its client base across Singapore, Indonesia and India.

Qapita was founded in September 2019 by Ravi Ravulaparthi (CEO), Lakshman Gupta (COO) and Vamsee Mohan (CTO) - a team of experienced professionals, each with over twenty years of experience in investment banking, corporate venture capital and technology sectors. They identified an opportunity to use technology at the confluence of three megatrends - rapid growth in the number of start-ups, expansion in the amount of venture capital and digitisation in finance across this region. The team has grown from 7 people twelve months ago to about 65 people today across Singapore and India. Qapita plans to scale up talent across India, Indonesia and Singapore in the near future.

Qapita expects the value of private securities in this region to exceed Rs 1-1.5 trillion (with 200-250 unicorns) in the next few years and that scalable digital solutions will be critical for such an ecosystem to thrive.

“East Ventures is excited to double down its investment in Qapita to build an operating system for private markets in this region. This platform can become the connective tissue between private companies, their employees, shareholders and investors on all equity related matters,” said Willson Cuaca, co-founder and managing partner of East Ventures.

According to Sateesh Andra, managing director at Endiya Partners, "India and the entire South-East Asia region already have a very vibrant startup ecosystem that is going to grow exponentially in the next few years with large capital inflows. Ravi, Lakshman and Vamsee are mission-focused as a team. Endiya Partners firmly believes Qapita with their comprehensive liquidity solution suite for private, high-growth companies will be the platform of choice.”