In Full Blume: slice on a roll, Leverage Edu takes a leap, the XR future we were waiting for, and more.
Updates from the Blume team and portfolio companies
Blumiers have been taking some big swings in 2024. Big numbers, new partnerships, technology leaps, leadership hires, awards and …..truth be told, we are breathless keeping track of what’s unfolding!
In this edition, we’ve got everything from hot updates to a bit of look back.
Here’s what’s in store for you:
Updates from Stage, Pixxel, Euler Motors, Leverage Edu, slice, and Carbon Clean
Nuanced takes and opinions on new opportunities and potential avenues from both our founders and us
A glimpse of look-back (and feel good) from portfolio founders
Read on!
All New
All the world’s a Stage
Regional OTT platform Stage, a Blume Fund IV company, has added 100k+ customers just in January 2024. For some context, in April 2022, the company reached the 100k overall subscribers milestone. Within two short years, it has managed to grow its business rapidly.
Stage has also been in the news recently thanks to the appointment of Harsh Mani Tripathi as its new cofounder and for raising funding from Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra.
All set for the big stage, certainly!
Taking a slice of the UPI payment pie
Consumer payments startup slice, a Blume Fund II company, recently launched a UPI-first prepaid account for all users. This comes after a three-month beta period, primarily available to its existing customer base. slice made this announcement in style with a splash in the front pages of leading newspapers
The UPI first account offers a UPI handle (@slice) and a virtual prepaid account. Users can add money to the virtual account and spend via UPI or card or link to any other bank account.
Rajan Bajaj, founder and CEO of slice, had this to say on LinkedIn:
Most frequent feedback I get from (beta) customers:
1. It's really really fast
2. After using it for a week, I moved all my UPI payments to slice account
We have practically removed all distractions that hijack your attention. Our home screen is literally just a numpad to type amount or scan QR—it saves at least 3 taps and 5 seconds on each transaction. And since your UPI handle (@slice) and balance are on the same app infrastructure, there are many more advantages.
It's the kind of UPI-first account we would love to have in the world, and as we have started crossing 200k transactions on some days recently, and initial teething issues are fixed—we are now opening it up for you all 🥳
What are you waiting for? It’s time to ‘slice’ UP (I) your life!
Carbon Clean clean sweeps Tech Tour Growth50 Europe 2024 Summit awards
Carbon Clean (Blume Fund I), a leader in revolutionizing carbon capture solutions, won the Sustainability Award at the Tech Tour Growth50 Europe 2024 Summit, securing the highest votes from an investor community judging panel.
The company was named one of the top 50 European technology companies with the biggest growth potential and is considered to be on a path to becoming a unicorn in the 2024 Tech Tour Growth50 List. A selection Panel of more than 90 investors assessed multiple factors to finalize the list, including revenue growth, market potential, technology development and funding raised.
Carbon Clean has been on a streak over the last year, like the first industrial deployment of their breakthrough carbon capture technology CycloneCC and opening offices in Calgary, Canada, and the US.
Leverage Edu continues to build for the future
Leverage Edu, a Blume Fund III company that helps Indian students enroll in global colleges, achieved over three-fold growth in its operating scale in the fiscal year ending March 2023.
Revenue from operations increased 228% to Rs 69 crore in FY23 from Rs 21 crore in FY22.
In a LinkedIn post, Founder and CEO, Akshay Chaturvedi shared about how they are investing in brand and people: “In 2023, we saw some brand unlock, previous year’s momentum giving us double-digit referrals, direct-to-students products firing up > leading to over two-thirds of acquisition on UK corridor being zero-CAC. A conscious focus on high student NPS, high employee retention (Coaches who serve students) > resulted in > higher referrals + more-targeted/optimized marketing (lowering effective CAC), and significant improvement in conversions.”
Akshay added, “When the FY24 (that we’re now closing) results play out later this year, it’ll reflect all of the above, leading to: significant revenue growth and massively trimmed losses. Now getting into FY25, focused on newer destinations, more source markets, well-balanced GTM, more WC-efficiency, bigger impact of Fly Finance, Fly Homes, and head-down improving our profitability.”
Where there’s a ‘Will,’ there’s a way, says Pixxel's new CFO
Pixxel (Blume Fund III), a leader in innovative hyperspectral earth-imaging technology, has appointed William McCombe as its new Chief Financial Officer.
William has extensive experience as a Chief Financial Officer at various space and technology hardware companies, most notably Maxar, the largest US space imaging company, and Velo3D, an industry leader in metal 3D printing systems for aerospace, defense, and other industries.
“With its state-of-the-art hyperspectral satellite constellation, Pixxel will be a game-changer, revolutionizing how we view and understand our planet.Its mission of providing an entirely new level of data and analytics for environmental monitoring will have a far-reaching global impact,” said William on his appointment.
Pixxel also recently opened a 30,000 sqft spacecraft manufacturing facility ‘MegaPixxel’ in Bengaluru. This is the company’s first large-scale satellite assembly, integration, and testing facility.
Kaleidofin wins big at Bharat Fintech Summit ‘24
Sucharita Mukherjee, CEO of Kaleidofin, and Natasha Jethanandani, CTO of Kaleidofin, won the Woman Fintech Leader of the Year award and the CTO of the Year-Fintech, respectively, at the recently concluded Bharat Fintech Summit ‘24.
We couldn’t be prouder of their achievements. Kaleidofin (Blume Fund II) is a financial technology platform that helps under-banked customers, particularly women, meet their real-life goals by providing tailored financial solutions.
The company has been grabbing a lot of eyeballs with their work. Michael Dell recently shared a Forbes article that featured the company. Dell’s LinkedIn post read- “Excited about the work of Michael & Susan Dell Foundation partner Kaleidofin Private Limited, a #fintech company that’s helping under-banked customers in India save for their futures. The company’s #AI powered credit scoring tool also helps small entrepreneurs access funding to grow their businesses.”
Here’s to more accolades and success!
Euler Motors 🙌 Magenta Mobility
Euler Motors (Blume Fund III), an electric vehicle company, has extended its partnership with Magenta Mobility with a new order of 2,000 HiLoad EVs.
This partnership extension is on the back of the successful fulfillment and delivery of 500 HiLoad EVs to Magenta. These HiLoad EVs will be produced at Euler Motors’ manufacturing hub at Palwal, Haryana, and are expected to be delivered within the next 18 months.
Read more here.
In the news
GreyOrange CEO Akash Gupta on how automation is revolutionizing warehouses
While one might think that warehouse automation might be table stakes, given the breakneck speed of innovation in omnichannel delivery, it is rather shocking that only about 10% to 15% of warehouses have mechanized at least some of their processes.
And only a relatively scant mid-single-digit percentage point slice of warehouses might be deemed to be heavily automated.
In an in-depth interview with Pymnts, Akash Gupta, CEO of GreyOrange (Blume Fund I), talks about warehouse automation and how it can be used to shrink fulfillment time and streamline decision-making. In short, it can help in figuring out “what [task] needs to be done, by whom it needs to be done … and when it needs to be done.”
Watch the entire interview here.
2023 was a year of learning and challenges for India’s startup ecosystem
"If 2020-2021 were the years of the ‘biggest cheques,’ 2022-2023 were the years of reality checks."
In a co-authored piece for DealStreetAsia, Blume’s Sanjay Nath and Sumangal Vinjamuri look closely at the year gone by.
The duo shares that while AI startups have been ‘fairly immune’ to the funding winter, now they have their task cut out as they must build their moats, with incumbents like Microsoft and Salesforce quickly adapting to the AI game.
Overall, we feel that the funding winter is probably in its last leg, and now the focus will turn to sustainable growth.
Read the entire opinion piece here.
We will have a 4X growth from last year: Saurav Kumar, CEO, Euler Motors
In an interview with Indian Express, Saurav Kumar, CEO of Euler Motors, talks about alternative fuels, Euler Motors' growth, battery longevity, and everything in between!
As mentioned above, Euler has just extended its partnership with Magenta Mobility with a new order of 2,000 HiLoad EVs.
“When you think about how Euler has been able to create value in terms of payload carrying capacity, range, and fast charging, it has been a phenomenal journey. Everybody had mentioned that Rs 3 lakh is the segment for our category and that Rs 4-5 lakh onwards is for four-wheelers. But price is not the only determining factor– it’s value as well,” said Saurav in the interview.
We also mentioned in the last edition of the In Full Blume newsletter that the company has also been consistently hitting the top three rank, just behind Mahindra & Mahindra and Piaggio Vehicles, for three-wheeler cargo electric sales over the last three months in India, according to data from the Vahan Dashboard.
Given these record-breaking numbers, it is no surprise that the future looks bright for Euler Motors!
Blume house views
Cross-border commerce: The next big B2B opportunity
While India has always been at the forefront of IT and support services, there is no doubt that the country is well on its way to dominating manufacturing and goods in the coming few decades. This growing focus on goods exports presents a prime opportunity for startups to connect Indian manufacturers with major global buyers.
A few prominent tailwinds support this thesis: the China+1 strategy, government PLI schemes, and the rise of India's digital infrastructure.
We believe that the most significant current opportunity for Indian B2B ventures lies in helping SMBs export to large buyers. Startups can aid a large number of Indian SMBs in plugging into the export economy and growing their business.
In this post, Blume’s Anurag Pagaria digs deep into why we believe this to be the sweet spot! Read now!
EV financing and distribution: Our take
In the second part of the EV primer conversation hosted by Nikhil Nair, CEO of Ohm Mobility, Arpit Agarwal, and Venkatesh Modi of Blume Ventures, talk about the fascinating and rapidly evolving landscape of electric vehicles.
In the course of the conversation, they touch upon:
EV distribution and dealerships as a business
Digitisation of the EV purchasing journey
The emergence of multi-brand outlets (MBOs)
Why EVs are basically “smartphones on wheels.”
This is your one-stop for all things EV. Watch the full episode here.
A look back at Bangers
The future is happening right here and now: A look back into Blume's XR thesis
With Apple Vision Pro grabbing the headlines, we thought it’d be a good time for you to revisit our XR thesis.
Here’s how Joseph Sebastian, author of the XR Thesis, started the report: “The biggest prize in technology is reserved for those who are able to build the future. Every few years a new platform is born and the company that either builds it first or scales it most, manages to accrue the most amount of value. That company then has the privilege to define the rules of engagement for a generation on that platform.”
There is no doubt that the future is unfolding right in front of our eyes. Many cutting-edge experiments and bets by incumbents and startups have successfully panned out in the last year and a half, and we feel that the ‘heralded’ time is here and now.
How about reading/re-reading our thesis and ‘connecting the dots’ (Steve Jobs’ famous Stanford speech call back, anyone 😉 )?