Naya Ventures, a Dallas-based, early-stage technology fund focused on mobile, cloud and big data, will be investing in six to seven cutting-edge technology companies originating from India over the next one year, according to its founder and general partner Dayakar Puskoor.
"We have already identified a couple of startup ideas from International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad and one from Indian Institute of Technology-Madras. We will be investing in them pretty soon," Puskoor told Business Standard.
The almost two-year-old, $50-million fund has so far invested a total of $10.5 million in 14 young startup companies, all based out of the US. These include realtime location-sharing platform Glympse, Boxfish, a company that captures every word spoken on TV and social in realtime, and Altia Systems Inc, which developed a new camera technology that combines its patented hardware, algorithms and software in one device to enable a panoramic-HD video stream with a 200-degree field of view.
Till date, these 14 firms together have raised close to $55 million in a second round of funding from various investors, and over the last two years created a $200-million value.
"Lack of access to global sales and marketing talent, networks and prospects, and top-tier mentors has been a huge challenge for Indian startup entrepreneurs. Also, high-growth sectors such as big data, cloud computing and mobile applications that have potential to create billions of dollars in wealth and several hundreds of jobs require laser sharp focus and rapid execution. Our goal is to help such companies build and scale to go global," he said.
The life of Naya Ventures' technology fund is eight years. The fund invests in the first four years and exit in the next four years. It typically invests anywhere between $250,000 to $3 million in each company not just in pre-series A rounds but also follow-on rounds.
Stating that what happened in Israel was going to happen in India too, Puskoor said Israel,which has the second-largest number of listed companies in the world next to the US, had created close to $8 billion wealth through startups last year alone.
"The Israeli government is fully supportive of entrepreneurs looking to start a company through various financial and incubation programmes. I am hopeful that India will replicate the Israeli model," he said, adding Naya Ventures' fund would have 17 to 18 companies in its portfolio at any given point.
