In Full Blume
Updates from our team and portfolio
Funding Spotlight
Servify, which provides post-sales services for gadgets and electronics, has raised $5.7 million in a new tranche of its Series D financing round from CE Ventures and Trifecta Venture (a mix of equity and debt). The startup is on a mission to reimagine device ownership experiences for electronic gadgets (like Samsung or Apple) so it doesn’t become a tedious exercise of haggling with multiple service providers.
Sreevathsa Prabhakar, Founder and CEO of Servify
Dunzo, India’s favourite last-mile delivery startup, recently raised an undisclosed amount from Google and Reliance Retail.
Blumiers and Shakers
EVerything EVerywehere All At One!
ElectricPe just launched a community exclusively for people who can’t get enough of all things EVs. Branded as Club Electric, it’s a place to connect with electric vehicle enthusiasts and ask questions, give advice, find exclusive offers, and get hold of the first invite to that fancy new EV event in town. So if you’re tired of trawling through dull “Top 10 Tips on How to Service Your EV Vehicle” articles, Club Electric is the place for you.
Blume Velocity is back (now in-person)
In the early stages, startups often lack CXOs, leaving founders to take on multiple roles such as CMO, CHRO, and CSO, managing all aspects of the company. Blume Velocity, a bootcamp for early-stage Blume portfolio companies, offers early-stage founders a structured learning program, providing strategic and tactical advice on key org functions (Product, Design, Marketing, Sales, Technology, HR and Fundraising) from experienced experts.
Our first Blume Velocity was in 2020. It packed 15 sessions over seven weeks – and boasted 18 rockstar mentors (& 10 portfolio companies).
This year, we mixed things up! Velocity 2023 was held over two days with founders coming to Blume’s Bangalore office for two power-packed days. It was also our biggest yet with 15+ sessions led by 20+ mentors.
The event started with Sajith Pai sharing his obsession with PMF. So, what is PMF – is it word-of-mouth referrals? Customers paying for your product? Inbound leads? Or are users putting up with friction just to use your product?
The founders had a blast breaking it down.
We had Mekin Maheshwari, co-founder of Udhyam Foundation and former Flipkart senior leader, host a session on hiring for startups. In his inimitable style, Mekin co-created the session with founders throwing their current issues at him and working their way to a solution with him. Talk about building in public!
We also had Khadim Batti talk about how they built the customer success function at Whatfix, and how it has become a key lever for customer delight as well as revenue expansion. On the topic of revenues, Shashank Bijapur of legaltech SaaS play Spotdraft, took us through his GTM playbook, including how they are winning customers in the US market. Ranjeet Pratap Singh, co-founder of content play Pratilipi explained how he thinks about culture and how culture and values act as a conduit to building enduring companies.
The day ended with a session on raising funds by Karthik. We noticed founders furiously taking notes on the similarities between raising venture funds and enterprise sales. The session was all about how should founders engage with the investors on their cap tables, how VCs value early-stage companies, the pros and cons of venture debt, and the challenges of raising capital in the current funding environment.
Day 2 was back to the basics: with sessions on scaling a startup’s tech architecture, growth for early-stage startups, creating the right culture from Day 1 (and making the right hiring decisions).
Velocity 2023 Mentors
Blume’s “Extending” Realities
We’re grateful to have had the opportunity to host Anand Dass, Global Director for Metaverse content, at the Blume villa in Bangalore. Watching Meta have such strong convictions in XR has been inspiring.
L-R: Gautham S and Joseph Sebastian with the Meta team
Speaking of the metaverse, we also had Joseph Sebastian of Blume speak at Meta developer day this Tuesday.
The energy was ⚡
The IVAR Impact
Next up, the front page of one of the leading English dailies ran a smart ad quoting data from the Indus Valley Annual Report 2023. Naturally, this had Sajith reminiscing about his Times Group days on LinkedIn
Still haven’t read it? Download it here.
In addition to this, Sajith Pai recently appeared on Shruti Rajagopalan's "Ideas of India" podcast, where they discussed a range of topics related to the Indian startup landscape. Among the topics covered were whether Indian founders imitate the West too much and whether Indian VCs are hesitant to back contrarian ventures. Sajith mentioned that the Indian startup ecosystem is evolving rapidly and that there is a growing trend of Indian founders building companies that are uniquely Indian in nature. And of course, IVAR found its way in the conversation:
On “Cloud” Nine
On to E2E Networks next. The startup that’s been shaking up the cloud computing world for a while just landed themselves the Times Business Awards North 2023 for excellence in Cloud & AI. This is a testament to their long-standing commitment to providing a cloud platform that is scalable and cost-effective. Great work, team – always your greatest supporters! 👏🏽👏🏽
To The Moon And Back
April also saw the 1st anniversary of Pixxel Space’s launch of Shakuntala. When it launched, Shakuntala was the world’s highest-resolution commercial hyperspectral satellite and India’s first-ever commercial satellite launch. The journey to building a health monitor for the planet is just beginning – exciting times ahead!
Chasing Unicorns
What is venture capital all about: is it about finding and funding the next unicorn? Is it about backing exceptional founders who “think differently”? Or is it about betting against conventional wisdom? Or all of the above? Karthik recently jumped on The One Percent Project to talk about how he thinks about getting to a successful outcome in venture capital, what makes him tick, his journey so far, and how he defines and manages risk.
🔈 "I think one of my superpowers is the ability to pretty much experience as many things in life as possible, assimilate what I like, and become one with it."
Kicking Off LP Summit Series
Blume hosted its first Investor Summit of 2023 in Mumbai last month.
One of the highlights of the evening was the conversation between Manish Taneja, the founder of Purplle, Sreevathsa of Servify, and Karthik Reddy. They discussed the challenges of building a business for the long term and how Mumbai is becoming a hub for sustainable startups.
Manish shared his journey of building Purplle, a beauty and personal care platform, from scratch. He talked about the importance of having a clear vision and a dedicated team that works towards achieving common goals. He also emphasized the need for startups to focus on sustainability and build businesses that create long-term value for all stakeholders.
Ashish Fafadia at the Blume Investor Summit in Mumbai
Karthik, on the other hand, highlighted how Mumbai is setting an example for other cities when it comes to building a thriving startup ecosystem. He talked about the city's rich talent pool, supportive government policies, and access to capital.
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