Rainmaker Ventures to invest in five more startups by year-end, says co-founder Atul Hegde

Mumbai-based early-stage venture capital fund Rainmaker Ventures Private Ltd will invest in five more startups by the end of this year.

Talks with three startups are in their final leg, Atul Hegde, co-founder, Rainmaker Ventures, told Techcircle. Rainmaker is likely to make the announcement on these funding proposals by the end of this month.

"The three startups are in the space of fin-tech, digital marketing and services and healthcare. The investment proposal related to the fin-tech or the healthcare startup may close first," said Hegde. The early-stage investment firm is also keenly looking at the logistics sector and evaluating startups for potential investments.

"One sector that has really evolved and has caught our attention is logistics. There is huge disruption happening at all levels -- first mile, last mile, in-between first mile and last mile, aggregators and individuals," said Hegde.

Earlier this month, Rainmaker made its first investment of $1 million in Mumbai-based Raftaar Technologies that operates bus aggregator Limo.

According to Hegde, the firm plans to put in $500,000-$3 million each in its investee firms.

"We will back only businesses that have a genuine customer need where customers pay for the product/service and those that do not capitalise customer acquisition," said Hegde, adding that the investment scenario has seen a lot of changes in the last six months.

"There is a lot more pragmatism on the ground now and the proposals that come in are more realistic and present a long-term perspective. This benefits young funds like ours," said Hegde.

Digital marketer-turned-entrepreneur Hegde and industrialist Sudhir Menon had joined hands in December last year to launch Rainmaker Ventures with a capital commitment of $50 million.

While Menon is chairman and managing director at Mumbai-based chemical manufacturer Dorf Ketal Chemicals India Pvt Ltd, Hegde is a digital media industry veteran and is currently chief executive at Ignitee Digital Services Pvt Ltd, an advertising and marketing agency.

At the time of launch, Rainmaker Ventures had said it would focus on startups in the space of financial technology, education, healthcare and FMCG.

Rainmaker has not set any time-frame for the full deployment of funds and is looking to initiate the process for raising its second fund in the next six to eight months.

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