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Venture Catalysts raises funding from Zaffiro Ventures

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ANI New Delhi

Valued in a groundbreaking development for the Indian entrepreneurial landscape, Venture Catalysts has secured an undisclosed amount from Zaffiro Ventures.

VCats was valued at Rs. 40 crore during the investment process, marking a major landmark in the six months of its operations and underlining its position as the fastest growing seed investment platform in the country.

"Our aim, ever since our launch, has been to support and augment the growth of promising start-ups across the country. The investment from Zaffiro will not only help us in expanding to multiple cities across India and promote entrepreneurship beyond the metropolitan and tier-I geographies, but will also allow us to access industry insights and business acumen gained by individuals such as Revathi Roy and Jagdish Gothi. This will add great value to our business approach and allow us to reach newer heights," said Co-founder Venture Catalysts, Dr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma.

 

The latest announcement from VCats will be music to the ears of the country's entrepreneurs, start-ups and investors, as it hints at the establishment of a holistic, end-to-end start-up investment and support ecosystem across the country, including tier-II and tier-III cities.

The platform recently expanded its operations into Surat to an extremely positive response and will be looking to establish its physical presence in five cities in 2016 with an aim to expand to five more cities in the next two years.

"After interacting with VCats founders, we learnt how building a robust, end-to-end ecosystem to support and nurture new-age tech businesses can help raise the innovation quotient of the country," said Co-founder Zaffiro Ventures, Revathi Roy.

"With the company already creating major disruption in the way start-up investment and support in the country is approached, it made more sense to integrate with their effort instead of reinventing the wheel by creating a completely new platform," added Revathi Roy.

Having already enabled seven investments into high-value start-ups with the total deal size exceeding USD three million, Venture Catalysts will also be looking to leverage its association with Zaffiro to mobilize local HNIs as mentors and investors by connecting them to global ideas developed by disruptive start-ups under incubation at VCats.

The platform already has over 600 angels as a part of its investor network and is looking to add 100 new angels in the next few months.

Venture Catalysts will also be looking to leverage the strong industry relationships enabled through Zaffiro to augment its own array of strategic partnerships with the likes of Cox and Kings, HDFC, Plug and Play etc.

By giving its investee start-ups access to some of the biggest corporate companies in India, VCats aims to increase their chances of success by enhancing business opportunities.

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First Published: Jul 02 2016 | 1:59 PM IST

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