 |
| Radhesh Kanumury |
Industry veteran Radhesh Kanumury announced that he will be starting Suvan Ventures, a new venture fund focused on early stage B2B Indian cross-border SaaS companies (those which sell into global markets like US and Europe but have development/ customer success/ marketing teams in India). The fund size is expected to be $10-15mn, making 20-25 investments.
Suvan Ventures will identify and invest in companies early in their lifecycle and help them scale by providing mentoring, as well as invaluable connections to investors, partners, subject matter experts, system integrators and potential customers.
Global SaaS companies from India have an immense potential, as highlighted by a recent report by Bain & co . The report forecasted combined annual revenues of $30 billion by 2025 for Indian cross border SaaS companies.
There are already enough proof points in this space.
The potential of this sector is in-fact supported by companies like Browerstack, Druva, Freshworks, Zenoti, Chargebee, Mindtickle, Postman, Uniphore that have attained a ‘Unicorn Status’ in the recent past. Further, the successful IPO of Freshworks at Nasdaq, reaffirms the stability and momentum of the indigenous B2B cross-border SaaS sector.
Radhesh has been founding member and Managing Partner of Arka Venture Labs (built from scratch with 3 Anchor investors namely Blume, BGV and Emergent Ventures), a venture fund that successfully pioneered this category till December last year.
Arka Venture Labs, started in August 2018, has made 27 investments before the beginning of the year, out of which there are 4 exits already. 9 of the investments have received up rounds of financing from Marquee investors like B Capital, Lightspeed, Nexus, Matrix ventures, Sequoia Surge, Uncorrelated Ventures, Facebook, etc. Radhesh will continue to lead some of the investments from Arka Venture Labs post January this year. Arka will continue to back pre seed and seed stage entrepreneurs building India US cross border startups.
Speaking on founding Suvan Ventures, Radhesh Kanumury said -
I've had immense learning from Arka Venture Labs that I would like to incorporate in Suvan Ventures. Specialized funds like Suvan Ventures can play an important role in the journey of Indian B2B cross border companies. We already have anchor commitments from family offices and marquee angel investors.
Radhesh has got strong testimonials from the portfolio founders of Arka Venture Labs.
Radhesh is amongst the most seasoned B2B investors in India with rich operational experience in the enterprise technology space. Before Arka Venture Labs, he had an 18 year stint with IBM with roles across technology, sales, and business development. During his final 3.5 years there he led IBM India's startup initiative working exclusively with B2B startups, providing mentoring and connections to the right set of people in the ecosystems, enabling them to successfully and rapidly scale.
“I have had the pleasure to work with Radhesh both as an investor and a mentor helping us with product, GTM strategy and much more. He is one of the rare VCs that is deeply empathetic to the founder journey, takes the extra mile to understand the market & business and truly gets hands on and helps when required. I am convinced that Radhesh’s conviction for exploring new tech and deep empathy for founders can be a great asset to any early-stage company,” said Nirman Dave, Co founder of Obviously.ai.
Aditya Bhamidipaty, Founder of Firsthive, added, “Radhesh is an incredible partner to the founder. I have found him very engaged, empathetic and invested in our success emotionally beyond just the money. Most importantly he is always available and just a call away. He is a wonderful sounding board, always ready to work the network and thinking about the company almost like an extension of our team.”
Advertisements