In Full Blume: Hockey-stick Growth, Media Spotlight, BITS & Bluprints
Updates from the Blume portfolio companies and team
We’ve set the ‘Stage’ with some ‘can-you-even-believe-it’ growth numbers, ‘smart’ and ‘ethereal’ funding rounds, a landmark deal—no, strike that—a ‘spacemark’ deal, a whole new global app, a strategic acquihire, and a big ticket customer win, followed by tons of media coverage.
We’ve even got a small corner for some Blume Bluprints and other updates for a change.
Read on!
Funding Galore
Charged Up: Battery Smart Powers Ahead with $65 million Funding
Battery Smart (Blume Fund IV), a battery swapping network for electric two—and three-wheelers, raised $65 million in Series B funding. LeapFrog Investments led the round, which also included Blume Ventures, MUFG Bank, Panasonic, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, and British International Investment (BII).
The company will use the funds to scale its battery-swapping network nationwide and promote more electric mobility adoption.
Its battery-as-a-service (BaaS) solution helps customers save high upfront costs.
Currently, Battery Smart has over 1,000 battery-swapping stations across 30 cities in Haryana, NCR, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra, completing over 35 million swaps with over 45,000 active customers.
Battery Smart recently partnered with quick commerce platform Zepto to deploy 1,000 electric vehicles in FY25. The partnership will allow Zepto’s EV delivery partners to use Battery Smart’s battery-swapping network.
Ethereal Machines ‘Cuts’ a $13 million Deal
Engineering hardware startup Ethereal Machines (Blume Fund III) raised $13 million in Series A funding round led by Peak XV Partners and Steadview Capital with participation from existing investors Blume Ventures, Enam Investments, and Sandeep Singhal.
The company will use the funds to set up a new smart factory in Karnataka and hire software and AI engineers to expand its product line.
Ethereal Machines co-founder Kaushik Mudda said the new factory would come up over the next 12 months and span 250,000 square feet, adjacent to the upcoming Foxconn facility.
"Over the last year, the company successfully reduced customer production times by 25-40 percent and improved their cost efficiency by 10-30 percent. As one of the handful of companies globally mastering 5-axis CNC machining, Ethereal addresses the increasing demand for cost-effective precision engineering components through its proprietary CNC machines," he added.
Portfolio Milestones
The Stage is All Set for the Perfect Hockey stick Growth
The regional OTT player Stage (Blume Fund IV) is experiencing record-breaking growth. Every month marks a new milestone. We’ve covered a good chunk of their milestones in previous newsletters, but we wanted to zoom out to show you their eye-popping numbers.
Stage has 8x-ed active paid subscribers since our late ‘22 Series A round and 20x-ed revenue growth since then. If this isn’t the perfect hockey stick growth, we don’t know what else is. Take a look at the chart below.
Here’s what Sajith Pai, partner at Blume, had to say when revealing this exponential growth.
A Pixxel is Worth a Thousand Satellites
Space data and satellite manufacturer Pixxel (Blume Fund III) signed a landmark iDEX (innovations for Defence Excellence) contract with the Indian Ministry of Defence to develop miniaturized multi-payload satellites for the Indian Air Force.
Pixxel will develop small satellites of up to 150 kg for Electro-Optical, Infrared, Synthetic Aperture Radar, and Hyperspectral purposes.
Awais Ahmed, co-founder and CEO of Pixxel, said the contract's signing validated Pixxel’s efforts toward advancing space technology in the country and the government’s confidence in its abilities.
Pixxel is set to launch six commercial-grade hyperspectral satellites called Fireflies this year.
Hola says Unacademy’s New Language Learning App
Unacademy’s (Blume Fund II) all-new language learning app is live. It is the company’s first global product.
Gaurav Munjal, CEO of Unacademy, said this on X, “While all other Apps focus on too much Gamification, we built an App that actually makes you learn a Language.”
The app is available on Google Play and Apple’s App Store.
Dialing Up Success: Airtel Africa Rings in WebEngage
Airtel Africa has partnered with WebEngage (Blume Fund I) to drive its digital customer value management.
WebEngage will help Airtel, the second largest telecom service provider in Africa with more than 150 million subscribers across 14 African countries, monitor user service activities in a highly personalized manner, retaining customers and improving engagement.
Dataweave Acquihires Solvio
Dataweave, a proprietary analytics platform (Blume Fund I), has acquihired Solvio, an AI startup, to enhance its innovation in AI and data. This strategic move will involve integrating key members of the Solvio team into DataWeave, where they will assume pivotal roles in advancing the company's AI and data science initiatives.
Aerem Solutions 🤝Panasonic
Blume Fund IV company Aerem Solutions, a leading provider of end-to-end solar solutions, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Panasonic Life Solutions India Private Limited (PLSIND), a leading player in the distributed solar energy sector.
The MOU outlines a framework under which Aerem Solutions, through its financial arm NetZero Finance (India's only RBI-licenced Solar Focus NBFC), will provide tailored loan facilities to Panasonic's solar product customers.
Panasonic aims to sell over 500 crores of solar products by facilitating financial assistance for its homeowners and C&I customers through this partnership.
Media Recognition
Zopper’s Mayank Gupta in Entrepreneur India’s Fintech 50 2024
Over the last decade, Zopper (Blume Fund I) has emerged as one of the largest InsurTech players in India, given that some of the country’s largest banks, NBFCs, and e-commerce platforms are its customers.
The startup has a base of 200+ large clients and an expected gross written premium run rate of $300 million by March 2024.
This benchmark-setting work has earned Mayank Gupta and Zopper a place in Entrepreneur India’s Fintech 50 2024.
Procol’s on Top of G2 rankings
Next-gen procurement software Procol, a Blume Fund III company, is now #1 on G2’s Ease of Use score for Strategic Sourcing Software.
“Everyone hates using poorly designed software. They are clunky, fragmented and takes 10 clicks and multiple page loads to take action. Only the easiest to use procurement software gets adoption,” wrote Gaurav Baheti, CEO of Procol, on LinkedIn.
Mysa makes it to Inc42’s May ‘30 Startups to Watch’ list
Mysa (Blume Fund IV), a smart banking solution that helps businesses automate their cashflow management, accounting & taxes, has been featured in Inc42’s May ‘30 Startups To Watch’ list.
“While finalizing the startups for our 47th edition of the ‘30 Startups to Watch’ series – we witnessed a healthy surge in the adoption of AI, along with the fact that close to 60% of these startups either raised less than $2 Mn or were completely bootstrapped. This speaks volumes about the entrepreneurial spirit thriving within the Indian startup community, where limited resources are no longer viewed as an obstacle to innovation,” said Inc42’s LinkedIn post.
Blume Corner
‘Blume’-ing with Potential: Velocity Accelerates Startup Growth
The latest edition of Velocity took place on June 7-8 in Bengaluru. For the uninitiated, Velocity is a cohort-based learning and development program for the early-stage Blume portfolio founding teams. This edition had everything from GTM strategies and team building to fundraising.
Here's a quick recap of the impactful sessions and the experts who led them:
1. Product Market Fit - Sajith Pai, Blume Ventures
2. Product Design for Early Stage Startups - Mukesh Bansal, Myntra Fashion & Curefit - house of cult
3. A guide to sales for early-stage B2B startups - Ravi Kaushik Rajagopal, ex-Stripe
4. Customer Acquisition Strategies for Early Stage Startups - Pravin Jadhav, Dhan & ex-CEO of Paytm Money
5. Crafting a Growth Strategy and an Exceptional AOP for B2C Startups - Nitin Agarwal, Purplle.com & Disney+ Hotstar
6. Building an Inbound Engine - Sairam Krishnan, Atomicwork
7. Growth Strategies: Expanding Markets, Optimizing Operations, and Enhancing Customer Engagement - Mohit Kumar, Ultrahuman
8. Customer Success Strategies for B2B Startups - Yamini Bhat, Vymo
9. Event-led Sales - Prakhar Jain, Whatfix
10. Founder Journeys - Ramakant Sharma, Livspace
11. A Founder's Guide to Fundraising Success - Karthik Reddy, Blume Ventures
12. Creating Your Culture and Building Your A-Team - Hari TN, Ex-Big Basket
13. A Framework on Competing (& Winning) in Business - Shivakumar Ganesan, Exotel
You can catch a glimpse of Blume Velocity in this post.
India InsurTech Bluprint
Did you know that non-life insurance Gross Written Premiums (GWPs) are growing at 19X and have outpaced the growth of life insurance GWPs (14X) in the last two decades?
Undoubtedly, India's insurance landscape is undergoing a rapid transformation, propelled by major regulatory shifts and technological breakthroughs. The market is projected to triple by 2032, opening vast opportunities for innovation.
InsurTech startups are at the forefront, harnessing digital public infrastructure, AI, IoT, and advanced analytics to revolutionize underwriting, claims processing, and customer interaction. While traditional offline channels still dominate, digital adoption is gaining momentum.
The industry is pivoting towards hyper-personalized offerings, proactive risk management, and enhanced user experiences, making India a prime destination for InsurTech innovations.
At Blume, we anticipate a paradigm shift in India's insurance ecosystem. Our report delves into the sector's intricacies, highlighting what we believe to be the most promising areas for growth and disruption.
Gaming Bluprint
The Indian gaming market is expected to grow from $2.6 billion to $8.6 billion by 2027. India has the world’s second-largest gaming population, with 568M gamers, and 90% of them play on mobile.
The market is expected to shift from Real Money Gaming to a core gaming market as younger generations become key customers, creating opportunities for independent developers to build mobile games for the global market.
We look in-depth into the Indian gaming market and the whitespaces where we see opportunities in our Gaming Bluprint.
Is Secondary the Flavor of the Season?
What if we told you that in the last half a decade, around $7.7 billion has been transacted through private secondary markets, almost as big as the IPO exits? Fascinating, right?
This is exactly what Ashish Fafadia, partner at Blume Ventures, spoke about with Nisha Poddar on CNBC-TV18’s Deal Street, along with Anand Lunia of IndiaQuotient and Pankaj Naik of Avendus.
Here's the full interview if you want to know about the growing importance of secondary exits and the venture fund exit strategies.
EV Here, EV There, EV EV Everywhere
Two-wheeler EVs are common in India and much of Asia, unlike in the West, where EVs are usually four-wheelers. It isn’t surprising, given that these are two-wheeler-dominant markets and that, in most cases, an average consumer’s first vehicle of choice is a two-wheeler.
Tech in Asia spoke to Blume’s Venkatesh Modi and Dr Joko Purwanto of the ERIA: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia to understand this big trend.
Indus Valley Annual Report takes the Centrestage in Story Rules Podcast (once again)
Story coach Ravishankar Iyer discusses our Indus Valley Annual Report with investment team members Anurag Pagaria and Nachammai Savithri. They discuss everything from how we picked key themes and the research process to draft storylines and even the visual elements.
Some of the key takeaways include-
- Simple tools work for research and retrieval
- Leading with the story narrative
- Connecting the dots across sectors
- Following Data Storytelling basics
- Simple visuals
Hear the full interview here.
‘BITS by BITS,’ We’ve Built Blume
We do not often become the story, but we had to share this as this is all nostalgia and pride. Our co-founder, Sanjay Nath, was recently conferred the BITS Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Sanjay, a part of the ‘90 batch at BITS-Pilani, had this to say.
“BITS has played a pivotal 'crucible moment’ in my life. As all BITSians wear their BITS heart on their sleeves, it has always been a pleasure and privilege to be closely involved, engage with, collaborate with and help fellow BITSians, and give back. I get much of my daily energy by interacting with and learning from the best and brightest youngsters, sometimes half my age!”
We have a long history with BITS, from teammates to startup founders (GreyOrange, Locus, Exotel, Pixxel, SuperK, Segwise.ai) we’ve backed. Long live the BITS and Blume connect!