Here are the companies in Indonesia that are attracting tons of investors and have the resources to spend on software, talent, and expansion.
Startups – Tech in Asia
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“In times of crisis and dilemma, mentors can be great teachers for founders, but no one can claim to be a great mentor. It’s a relationship you need to build over time,” – Mohandas Pai, cofounder and chairman, Aarin Capital
The former Infosys CFO has a unique point of view when it comes to Indian entrepreneurs and founders, as someone who has seen the startup ecosystem grow and flourish from the very early days.
About mentorship, Pai believes it’s a core responsibility of those who have seen the ecosystem come up from scratch. “We are seeing so many first-time founders and they often think being a founder is about being a cowboy. But that style doesn’t work and that’s when they feel the need for a mentor,” Pai said ahead of India’s national Teachers’ Day.
As the CFO of Infosys from 1994 to 2006, Pai brought a ton of experience to the tech industry when he became an active angel investor and then founded Aarin Capital. In his opinion, the Infosys experience is a critical asset for him in his role as mentor for the founders he has backed.
Besides Aarin Capital, Pai also launched Exfinity Ventures and has been a key advisor for 3one4 Capital as well as Ideaspring Capital. Over the years, the Padma Shri awardee has been a key investor in startups such as edtech giant BYJU’S, Shiprocket-owned Wigzo, Pocket Aces, Licious, Faircent, among others.
However, often founders believe that investors are overstepping the line when it comes to mentoring and guidance. How does Pai bring in the balance in his approach?
“It’s an organic relationship and as someone who invests in the early stage — the first cheque — I have to be available when the founders need me. Of course, I have to emphasise that I cannot take the decision for a founder, but we can explain the possibilities and potential implications of the decision,” he added.
While clarifying that VCs don’t run companies, Pai says that often founders don’t have the right approach. They believe that investors will take the company away from them if there is a wrong decision or some issues.
“Founders are very reluctant these days because such is the market. They have to remember that even if the market bounces back, the money may not be around, but mentors will be,” Pai, a founding partner at Aarin Capital added.
Pai stressed on the fact that investors across stages have to add value to their relationship with founders. It’s not just about the money or the cheque being written, but also what kind of trust is built over time.
Of course, besides writing the seed stage cheques, Pai is a director on several boards. Most recently, he joined BYJU’S as part of the advisory council for the company. Pai was one of the edtech decacorn’s early backers and has returned to mentor the company’s cofounder and CEO Byju Raveendran at a critical time.
While he did not comment directly about his role at the edtech giant, his overarching view is that founders need help at all stages of their company’s life cycle.
“At a $50 Mn valuation, the kind of help and advice they [founders] need is different than at a $500 Mn or at a $5 Bn valuation. But even at that stage, founders are not superheroes. Everyone learns on the job, and to execute fast growth you need the helping hand of someone with the right experience,” Pai added.
The post Money May Not Be Around, But Mentors Will Be: Mohandas Pai appeared first on Inc42 Media.
Photo by Adi Robertson / The Verge
A Korean news report suggests Meta is partnering with LG to release a successor to its high-end Quest Pro virtual reality headset in 2025. As spotted by UploadVR, Maeil Business Newspaper writes that Meta has struck a deal for a joint venture with LG. The resulting headset is rumored to be priced at around $2,000 and use LG displays, as well as other parts from LG subsidiaries like LG Innotek. Maeil Business Newspaper furthermore claims Meta will release a low-end Quest headset in 2024 that could cost under $200.
Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Verge, and some of the details of the report seem unintuitive. $200 would be a major price drop for the consumer Quest; the Quest 2 sells for $299 after Meta briefly attempted to raise the price, and the upcoming Quest 3 was announced at $499. The report also says the new high-end headset will be called the “Meta Quest 4 Pro,” which would break Meta’s current convention of keeping the Quest and Quest Pro lineup numbering separate.
Conversely, $2,000 would be about twice the price of the Meta-manufactured Quest Pro, which launched at $1,499 and then dropped to $999 — but the report believably suggests Meta will be positioning the new high-end Quest against Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro headset, which wasn’t around when the Quest Pro launched.
Overall, however, the report tracks roughly with Meta’s past behavior in the VR space. Although $200 would be very cheap, The Verge has previously reported that a cheap headset codenamed Ventura is indeed planned for 2024, with a Quest Pro successor likely after that. And as UploadVR notes, Meta (formerly Facebook) has released several headsets as joint-branded products. The Oculus Rift S bore Lenovo branding, the low-end Oculus Go was manufactured by Xiaomi, and Samsung made the mobile Gear VR.
That said, it’s worth pointing out that none of these were considered the most exciting Meta/Facebook headsets at the time of their release, which is contrary to how Meta has positioned the Quest Pro. The Rift S was Meta’s final wired-only headset before it focused entirely on the all-in-one Quest lineup, the Go was a low-end Rift and Quest alternative, and the Gear VR was a super-cheap alternative to the then-cutting-edge Rift. (A counter-example may be Meta’s high-profile partnership with Ray-Ban on smart glasses, but Meta also described that as an early foray into augmented reality.) Meta has portrayed the Pro as a testing ground for innovative VR tech that will come more slowly to its cheaper mass-market products. An LG joint venture could maintain that role, but only if it looks a little different from some of those past partnerships.
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Bengaluru-based EV startup Ather Energy is raising INR 550 Cr from existing investor Hero MotoCorp.
Hero MotoCorp, in an exchange filing, said it would invest up to INR 550 Cr in Ather via its rights issue by subscribing to the EV startup’s Series E2 compulsory convertible preference shares.
Hero Motorcorp first invested in the EV startup in 2016 and currently holds a 33.1% stake in it. Its shareholding will further increase following the rights issue, which is expected to close by September 30.
The funding round comes almost 11 months after Ather raised $50 Mn from Caladium Investment. Prior to that, it raised $128 Mn from NIIFL and Hero MotoCorp in May last year as part of its Series E round.
Overall, the startup has raised a total funding of over $400 Mn till date.
Founded in 2013 by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, Ather is a major player in the Indian two-wheeler EV market. It currently offers two escooters – Ather 450X and Ather 450S.
Ather also claims to have the largest fast-charging network in the country. It has over 1,400+ charging points in over 99 cities, including Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur.
Registrations of Ather’s escooters stood at 6,780 units in August, a marginal rise of 1.6% from 6,671 units in July. Its rival Ola Electric’s registrations declined 10.4% month-on-month to 17,331 units in August but it continued to lead the two-wheeler EV space.
Besides Ola Electric, Ather competes with Ampere, Okinawa, Revolt, TVS, among others.
Ather’s revenue stood at INR 1,806 Cr in FY23, a massive jump from INR 408.5 Cr in FY22, as per Hero MotoCorp’s filing. While the filing didn’t mention profit/loss numbers for FY23, Ather’s net loss rose 47% to INR 344 Cr in FY22.
The post EV Startup Ather Energy Bags INR 550 Cr Funding From Hero MotoCorp appeared first on Inc42 Media.
TechCrunch Disrupt, our flagship startup event, returns to San Francisco on September 19–21, and you can bet TechCrunch+ will be in the house. With excitement and pride, here’s what we have in store for you on the Builders Stage at Disrupt on what I predict will be the most whip-ass stage at the event. See […]
Hero MotoCorp, the world’s top two-wheeler maker, said on Monday it plans to invest up to $66.5 million in Ather Energy, a promising electric vehicle startup in India whose fast-growing fortune had to hit brake after a local policy change. Hero MotoCorp, which already owns a 33.1% stake in the Bengaluru-headquartered Ather Energy, disclosed (PDF) […]
Taste is something that continues to be a challenge for plant-based protein companies. If it tastes more like meat, it’s a winner, according to new stats from Good Food Institute.
Investment tech major Zerodha filed draft scheme information documents for two index funds with the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Monday (September 4) as it gets ready for the launch of its mutual fund business.
As per SEBI’s website, Zerodha Fund House has filed the documents for two funds – Zerodha Tax Saver (ELSS) Nifty LargeMidcap 250 index fund and Zerodha Nifty LargeMidcap 250 index fund.
The tax saver ELSS fund will have a statutory lock-in period of three years. It will replicate/track the Nifty LargeMidcap 250 Index.
It must be noted that Nifty LargeMidcap 250 reflects the performance of a portfolio of 100 large-cap and 150 mid-cap companies listed on the NSE.
Zerodha has set the minimum application amount for the fund at INR 500 for new purchases and in multiples of INR 500 thereafter.
The product is suggested to be for investors looking for long term capital growth and the risk in the scheme is ‘very high’.
Zerodha Nifty LargeMidcap 250 index fund also comes under ‘very high’ risk category and is suggested for long term capital growth.
It is similar to Zerodha Tax Saver (ELSS) Nifty LargeMidcap 250 fund but would not have any lock-in period as it is not a tax-saver scheme.
The minimum application amount for the fund is INR 100 and in multiples of INR 1 thereafter for both new purchases and additional purchases.
Earlier this year, Zerodha cofounder Nithin Kamath said that the investment tech platform will team up with smallcase to foray into the mutual fund business through the launch of its asset management company (AMC). Last month, it received the final approval from SEBI to start the operations of its AMC.
Reports were brewing for weeks now that the startup would soon launch its first new fund offer (NFO).
Zerodha Fund House is headed by former Nippon India senior executive Vishal Jain.
Kamath earlier said that Zerodha would launch simple products which investors can only understand. The fund house would only launch index funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs), he added.
Zerodha would compete with the likes of SBI Mutual Fund, Nippon India, Kotak Mahindra, and several others.
The asset under management (AUM) of the Indian mutual fund industry has grown six-fold over the last 10 years to INR 46.38 Tn, as on July 31, 2023, as per data by AMFI.
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Butternut Box, a U.K.-based startup that prepares and ships healthy food and supplements for dogs, is raising £280 million ($354 million) in a round of funding from General Atlantic and L Catterton. Founded out of London in 2016, Butternut Box serves a handful of European markets with myriad culinary products spanning the meat and vegetable fray, […]